Acer Aspire

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Acer, the third largest vendor in the global PC market (source: Gartner data, 1H 2008), today presented an all-new 10” Aspire One netbook, complete with a 10-inch screen, Windows XP and integrated Bluetooth, and designed for a fast, simple and utterly cool online life.

Only one year after first appearing on the market, netbooks have totally revolutionized the PC market, helping to form an entirely new market segment that users themselves created through a real need to be online all the time and to socialize around the clock.

Acer, thanks to its unique ability to read market trends and anticipate user needs, rapidly introduced the Aspire One, the world’s most popular netbook.

“Despite the recent problems of the financial markets and general economic uncertainty, the netbook and notebook markets will continue to grow in 2009” said Gianfranco Lanci, President & CEO, Acer Inc. “With companies focused on containing the crisis, consumers and products designed for them become more important as users simply cannot do without their personal communication instruments.”

At a little more than one kilo (1.18 kg), the new 10” Aspire One combines style, great features and a new form factor to provide the best combination of ultra-portability and maximum screen size for navigation and data input.

Designed for an optimal web browsing experience and Internet productivity, the 10” Aspire One includes a 10.1” WSVGA LED backlit display with a resolution of 1024×600 pixels that offers a broader vision for more convenient navigation. Integrated on top of the screen is the unique Acer Crystal Eye webcam optimized for poorly lit environments, a tiny window, tastefully encircled by a mirror rim, that keeps you connected to the world though live video streaming, video chats and conferences.

The 10” Aspire One comes with 802.11b/g WiFi and Acer Signal Up technology built-in as standard for easy access to available wireless networks. In addition is equipped with Bluetooth and can also be specified with a choice of embedded WiMAX or 3G wireless technologies for unlimited connectivity.

The 10” Aspire One meets Energy Star 4.0 requirements and can be equipped with a 6-cell Li-ion battery pack. With incredibly low idle power consumption, the 10” Aspire One guarantees up to 7 hours battery life for maximum fun. The battery indicator, placed on the front side is immediately recognizable even when the netbook is folded.

But the 10” Aspire One not only keeps you always connected; it keeps you connected with style. Available in four high-gloss color options including white, blue, red and black, the unmistakable design immediately catches the eye. The slim and streamlined Aspire One evokes speed and mobility, making it clear that it was designed for a life on the go. Stylish details such as the aerodynamic shaped metallic hinge with a colored accent and the fancy bright color rim that encircles the mirror plate power button immediately draw attention. The brushed-metal palm rest offers a refined look while avoiding unaesthetic fingerprints.

The 10” Aspire One is equipped with an Intel® Atom™ processor, Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express Chipset or Mobile Intel® 82801GBM Chipset and can be equipped with up to 2 GB of DDR memory for an enhanced user experience. Notwithstanding the small size, the 10” Aspire One features a large 160 GB internal hard drive. In addition the 10” Aspire One features a multi-in-one card reader for absolute data freedom.

The Aspire One comes with Windows XP® Home operating system; additional preinstalled software includes Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Launch Manager, Adobe® Reader®, McAfee® Internet Security Suite, Microsoft® Office Trial 2007.

The Aspire one comes with a 1-year carry in warranty which can be extended to 2 years with Acer Advantage.

source: www.techspot.com

Acer Aspire one: An In-Depth Look

Acer sure moves fast. This morning, a little over a week after the company announced its first entry into the mini-notebook space, the Acer Aspire one (Linux version, full review here) arrived in our offices to much glee. We couldn’t wait to test Acer’s answer to the Eee PC, HP Mini-Note, and MSI Wind NB.

However, before we began testing, we talked to our Acer rep who informed us that ours is a pre-production model that has a handful of known bugs (primarily inconsistent Wi-Fi and video playback issues), which are being fixed before the system ships. We kept that in mind as we dug into the system and evaluated its potential.

Design and Aestheics

Upon getting our hands on the Acer Aspire one, one of our first thoughts is that this doesn’t look like a budget machine. Our system sports a glossy white lid on the outside (it will also be available in black and blue), and a glossy black bezel on the inside which frames the 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel resolution display Unfortunately, it was a bit of a fingerprint magnet.

What we didn’t like is that the Acer Aspire one has a gap between the bottom of the display and the base of the machine, which reminds us a little bit of the Everex Cloudbook, a mini-notebook we want to forget. Whether or not you like a gap between your screen and your notebook body is totally subjective so we won’t hold that against the Aspire one. Overall, it’s a nice look and one that we’d gladly whip out at a coffee shop without fear of pointing and giggling.

Ports and Dual Card Readers

The perimeter of the 9.8 x 6.7 x 1.1-inch Aspire one serves up the following ports: three USB 2.0, a Kensington lock, VGA, Ethernet, and headphone and mic jacks. One particularly useful aspect of the machine is the inclusion of two memory card slots: one dedicated SD, and another 5-in-1.

“Why include two card readers,” you ask. Inserting a card into the stand-alone SD slot expands the internal storage. When we popped in a 4GB SD card, it was added to the on-board 8GB of flash for a total of 12GB. The system’s file manager actually adds the additional memory to the total of the internal hard drive so the whole thing looks like one large disk. We had one freezing incident when trying to view photos that were on the 4GB card before we inserted it, but we chalk that up to our system’s preproduction status.

This second expansion slot is Acer’s way of accommodating upgraders without encouraging them to monkey with the system’s internal components. This is a good thing, because since the RAM and SSD are soldered into place (according to our friend Brad Linder’s Aspire one dissection) making upgrades to either is pretty much impossible.

The Linpus Linux Lite Operating System

When the Acer Aspire one hits the market in July, mini-notebookers will be able to purchase the machine with either a Linux or Windows operating system (priced at $379 and $399, respectively). Our model features the Linpus Linux Lite OS, which takes a page from the Asus Eee PC’s Xandros Linus OS by organizing applications into distinct sections: Connect, Work, Fun, and Files.

Under the Connect heading, you’ll find Firefox 2.014, an instant messaging client that’s compatible with AIM, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger, Aspire one Mail, an RSS reader, Skype, and links to Wikipedia, Google Maps, and Hotmail. Work contains the OpenOffice suite, Contacts, Calculator, Notes, and Calendar. Fun houses the Media Master multimedia player, Photo Master picture manager, the KolourPaint paint program, a webcam, and a slew of causal games. The Files section is home to the My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos, My Downloads, and My Files folders.
The look of the interface is very simple and clean; our only gripe (and it’s a minor one) is that we had to click an arrow to display all programs in a section, as only three are displayed by default.

Located above these areas is a rather cool search box that doubles both as a desktop search tool and a traditional search engine. We decided to test it by typing in “NY Yankees” and clicking the search icon. Seconds later Firefox launched showing Yahoo search results for the query.

After we loaded the machine with multimedia files, we typed in “Sister”, changed the search from “Internet” to “Desktop”, and clicked the search icon. Instead of instantly displaying the results, the Acer Aspire One opened another search box, which was populated with the term we keyed in. Clicking Find initiated the search to find The Noistette’s “Sister Rosetta” MP3. It seemed like an unneeded extra step, but it worked well.

sourch:www.ubergizmo.com