I recently acquired an Acer Aspire One 531H Netbook. This surprised my wife since I am not a great fan of Netbooks, and consider these devices to be under powered and simply to small. However when I go the opportunity to get one for a decent price I decided to give it go, although I will admit I had no real valid reason for getting one. Since receiving it I have been truly surprised with the actual device, and even more surprised at it’s power.
The 531H is a 10” model. It has a Intel Atom 1.6Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM and 160GB HDD standard with various upgrade options. As a rule I always upgrade memory and was very surprised at how cheap the 2GB module for this model is, and I am planning in upgrading it fairly soon. However out of the box this little unit is truly impressive. I was debating what OS to use, and decided to first give Windows 7 Professional a try, as the Acer comes standard with Windows XP Home. The installation and format took around 25 minutes from an external DVD drive. Once installed the memory footprint of Windows 7 Professional on this Netbook is impressive, with around 500MB physical and a 1GB virtual memory available when idling. The processor seems to be extremely capable of handling anything thrown at it.
To truly test I opted to install everything I use on my desktop. Although some of the installations were slightly slower, there was no issues loading the software. The first application I installed was Adobe Photoshop CS4, which according to most would be extremely slow. The installation went smoothly, and Photoshop starts up in under 10 seconds. For basic graphics editing it is more then sufficient, with the 1024X600 screen being reasonable. I won’t recommend graphics designers to use it, but for small quick usage it is ideal.
Apart from the normal Microsoft Office, I also successfully installed Expression Studio 3.0, Microsoft SQL Server Client Tools, Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 and implemented my minimalist desktop. My 13” Macbook looks like a monster next to the Acer, however it happily runs all of the above, including offering a reasonable screen space for writing code. The keyboard is also well laid out providing easy access to all the keys, even if you happen to have larger then normal hands.
The touchpad also support gestures, like scrolling and pinching, and although small, also fairly easy to get use to. With the standard battery 2 hour battery life is easily achievable, however there is bigger batteries available providing longer usage, and the battery charges in just under an hour. The built in Webcam is optimised for low light usage, and I was extremely surprised at how clear it is in a dark room. The microphone is also very clear making Skype easy to use and configure.
The only device that did not install natively was the Wireless card, however a Windows Update took care of this very quickly. The easy access buttons for the Bluetooth and Wireless is also nicely placed below the led’s. There is also a multi-SD card reader installed which makes it extremely useful for photographers on the go, not wanting to carry massive notebooks with them.
Overall I am extremely impressed by the Acer Netbook, and it is now definitely something I can use everyday. It can be extremely handy for presentations with the built in VGA port, and also for quick edits to source code or graphics. This is apart from reading mail, following twitter or browsing the web. Weighing less then 1.5kg’s it is something I can easily travel with, and with 110GB free on the drive after installing all of the above, useful to cart data to and from work. For anyone in the market for a small device to travel with that offers a lot of power, I highly recommend the Acer Aspire One.
