Why You Can Trust CNET Acer Aspire One D150 review: Acer Aspire One D150
Acer Aspire One D150
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Despite owning a huge chunk of the growing Netbook market, the popular Acer Aspire One has been saddled with a 9-inch screen, rather than the bigger 10-inch type we prefer. At long last, Acer now has a 10-inch model, the Aspire One AOD150. Even better, it's keeping the starting price at $349, which is about $50-$100 cheaper than similarly configured systems from other PC makers. The Aspire One series has been neither the best nor the worst Netbook out there, and Acer's market share to date has largely been based on its lower retail-price strategy.
Acer Aspire One D150
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
With the basic Intel Atom/1GB RAM/XP setup, you'll get a similar experience to using a Netbook such as the HP Mini 1000 or Lenovo S10, but there are a handful of trade-offs for the AOD150's price. While the AOD150's keyboard is large enough for comfortable typing, the tiny touch pad and mouse buttons (on a flimsy rocker bar) are painful to use, and the extended six-cell battery runs for up to 6 hours, but makes the whole package relatively heavy. Note that our test unit had a slightly beefed-up battery (5800mAH versus 4400mAH) compared with what it will finally ship with, and we'll retest with the official six-cell battery when we get our hands on one.
Netbooks were originally intended as cheap, no-frills travel machines, and the new Aspire One fits that bill well, but there are also plenty of slightly more expensive options that add polish.
| Price as reviewed | $349 |
| Processor | 1.6GHz Atom Processor N270 |
| Memory | 1GB, 533MHz DDR2 |
| Hard drive | 160GB 5,400rpm |
| Chipset | Mobile Intel 945GSE |
| Graphics | Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 |
| Operating system | Windows XP |
| Dimensions | 10.2 inches wide by 8.4 inches deep |
| Height | 1.3 inches |
| Screen size (diagonal) | 10.1 inches |
| System weight / Weight with AC adapter | 2.9/3.5 pounds |
| Category | Netbook |
The new Acer Aspire One AOD150 is available in blue, white, red, and black. Our review unit was "sapphire blue," with a glossy lid and a matte, slightly textured finish on the keyboard tray. While the new Acer Aspire One has a footprint similar to other 10-inch Netbooks, such as the MSI Wind, it's significantly thicker than the slim HP Mini 1000, and also heavier, thanks to the bulky battery.
The first Acer Aspire One we looked at was a 9-inch Linux model, and while the AOD150 model has a larger chassis and screen, the keyboard is virtually identical. Despite not having as comfortable a keyboard as the Samsung NC10 or HP Mini, we did appreciate the inclusion of dedicated page-up and page-down keys.
The touch pad is one of the few giveaways that this is a budget Netbook. It's tiny and square, with a very small rocker bar below it, instead of traditional left and right mouse buttons. Getting it to properly register a click is a pain: you need to press really hard, as the contact seems to be deeply embedded in the chassis.
The 10.2-inch, wide-screen, LCD display offers a 1,024x600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for Netbooks. It's certainly readable, but most documents and Web pages will require some scrolling. Bright and clear, the new bigger display is the main selling points of Acer's updated Aspire One.
| Acer Aspire One AOD150 | Average for category [Netbook] | |
| Video | VGA | VGA |
| Audio | headphone/microphone jacks | headphone/microphone jacks |
| Data | 3 USB 2.0, SD card reader | 2 USB 2.0, SD card reader |
| Expansion | None | None |
| Networking | Ethernet, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, | Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth |
| Optical drive | None | None |
The Acer Aspire One AOD150 has a typical set of ports and connections for a lower-end Netbook. Trading up to a more expensive system from Lenovo or HP can net you useful extras such as Bluetooth, an ExpressCard slot, or even faster 802.11n Wi-Fi. Bluetooth is especially useful for syncing a smart phone for mobile broadband service.
With Intel's 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, specifically designed for low-power Netbooks, you get enough computing power for basic tasks, such as Web surfing, working on documents, and some basic multimedia playback. As expected, the Aspire One AOD150 performed on par with more expensive recent Netbooks, such as the HP Mini 2140 (and slightly faster than Sony's P-series Lifestyle PC, which is saddled with Windows Vista). We'll soon be seeing the first laptops with a faster version of the Intel Atom, the N280, which may expose some major fault lines in Netbook performance (or not, as small clock-speed bumps are often inconsequential).
The system ran for an impressive 6 hours and 17 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included six-cell battery. Note that our test unit had a slightly beefed-up battery (5800mAH versus 4400mAH) compared to what it will ship with, and we'll retest with the official six-cell battery when we get our hands on one, but we expect you'll still get 5-plus hours. The trade-off, of course, is the system's weight and size (as the battery is heavy and sticks out from the back).
The Aspire One includes an industry-standard, one-year, parts-and-labor warranty, but the company has a confusing maze of overlapping support Web sites. The tech support number is impossible to find (it's 800-816-2237), but we were eventually able to locate basic driver downloads on Acer's site.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Acer Aspire One AOD150
Windows XP Home SP2; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Hitachi 5400rpm
HP Mini 2140
Windows XP Home SP2; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 224MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Toshiba 5400rpm
Sony Vaio P
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1; 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 500; Samsung 64GB SSD
Dell Inspiron Mini 9
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 64MB Mobile Intel 945 Express; STEC 16GB SSD