Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Acer Aspire One AOD250 Review

On notebooks market, prices started going down and being competitive is a real challenge. Paying $500 for a Notebook was really common one year ago, but now the things changed and the average price is around $300. Dell has the Mini 10v at this price, and Acer's Aspire One is following good the competition, positioning itself around a price of $350 and they are doing pretty well, because they released Aspire One AOD250, at $298. Acer launched few months ago, the 10-inch version of the Notebooks, the AOD150. In February it cost $350 and it had its limitations ( a bad touch pad, somehow bulky because of the size of the battery and a cramped keyboard), but AOD 250 weighs less and it is thinner than the first version; it also has three cells in the battery, and not six, and this makes Aspire One AOD250 much better than the previous version. It has almost the same specifications as AOD150. The new product from Acer has a more compact design which makes it feel it less like a budget product.
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The keyboard is quite comfortable and it is far from the usual full size keyboards used on laptops. The typing experience is much more cramped than on an Samsung N120, or a HP Mini 110. The touchpad is tiny and inset, and the bottom button is more clicky than the previous version. Colors are sharp on the 10.1 inch wide screen, which offers a 1024x600 pixel resolution, which is quite normal for screens with these dimensions. The stereo speakers are not very good, they are weak (in volume and in sound quality). Well, headphones are usually a must for Notebooks, and this is the situation for most notebooks on the market.

Aspire One AOD250 has an Intel Atom N270 processor, and this kind of processors can be found in many notebooks, so nothing new. The 160 GB hard drive and 1 GB of DDR2 RAM are good for basic Web surfing, accessing documents and media viewing. Performance of this processor is the same for all notebook models available. This processor doesn't handle HD-streaming or full screen very good, but life battery is pretty good, and it can last up to 3 hours, theoretically. In practice, the battery is empty after almost 2 hours.

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This new Aspire model comes with one-years parts and labor warranty, and it can be extended to three years for $90-$100. This company has also a free number. and you can call at any time, when you have problems with the Aspire product. All the necessary information ca be found on their website also, and if you can't find it there, you can call the 24/7 number.

The good points of this product are the low price and the slim size, next to the improved touch pad buttons, which are balanced by the negative parts like weak speakers, the mediocre battery life and the small keyboard. All in all, for this price, Aspire One AOD250 is a good product, and as long as you don't expect top features, it is great for normal use.