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Acer AO722 quick review- a well-balanced budget netbook

Adrian — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 10:36:55 +0000

For a netbook to become popular nowadays and to attract large audiences, it has to fulfill a number of conditions. It has to be light and portable, it has to come at a decent and affordable price, but it also has to offer a performance level at least close to that of a notebook. Unfortunately, there are very few devices on the market today that can offer all that in one package. Fortunately, we are going to present you in the following lines one of these netbooks, the Acer AO722.

The latest 11.6-inch netbook from Acer manages to keep it simple and uncomplicated, but also to satisfy the basic needs of a computer user. The price tag is more than decent, the performance is pretty speedy for a mini-laptop and it also runs HD content pretty well.

Enough chitchat though and let’s get down to our business of quickly reviewing this netbook’s design, keyboard, screen, performance and autonomy. We would also like to determine the target audience of this netbook, as well as point out some of its inherent weak points aside of insisting on its advantages and strong points.

Exterior and design

If there’s one thing that sets Acer laptops apart from other computers on the market today is the coloring of their devices. The AO722 is not an exception from that rule, being available in two different color schemes, ‘’aquamarine’’ and ‘’espresso black’’.

The design is one of the things that you will either love or hate at Acer's new netbook.

Both of these could be considered pretty tacky by business users, but students and youngsters in general might find this netbook’s design pretty hip. The aquamarine model is our favorite, the distinctive ripple design on the lid making the computer resemble water coming to life.

The AO722 is solid and sturdy, but manages to be pretty lightweight also. It is highly portable, weighing in at 3.2 pounds and measuring 1 x 11.2 x 7.9 inches.

Keyboard and touchpad

One of the biggest problems of netbooks nowadays is the lack of comfort offered by keyboards. Unfortunately, Acer’s new machine fails to solve this inconvenience, even though it features a full-sized keyboard.

This feels pretty cramped and uncomfortable, but on the other hand is extremely accurate and precise. The touchpad is well-sized for a netbook and accepts multi-finger gesture input. Also, it blends very well into the overall design of the mini-laptop, which is pretty nice.

Screen, hardware and performance

The 11.6-inch LCD LED-backlit screen is very nice, offering a more than satisfying 1366×768 native resolution. Even though we are not impressed by the glossy black bezel of the display, the colors are bright and the images are extremely crisp.

The Acer AO722 is probably one of the best budget mini-laptops of the moment.

In terms of hardware and performance, Acer’s new netbook is powered by a 1 GHz AMD C-Series C-50 processor with 2 GB of DDR3 memory. While the chipset itself is far from impressive, being less powerful than the AMD Zacate E-350, for example, the ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics card with 256 MB of dedicated system memory manages to compensate a little and makes for an overall pretty snappy system.

You can’t hope to play new and demanding video games on this machine, but the HD video playback is smooth and satisfying. On the other hand, talking about multimedia content, the speakers are pretty poor, with flat sound quality and low volume.

In terms of internal storage space, the AO722 features a 250 GB SATA hard drive, which is pretty standard for a netbook with an affordable price tag.

Battery life and others

The 6-cell standard Li-ion battery featured by Acer’s 11.6-inch netbook should go for seven hours between charges, if we are to believe the producers’ claims. However, according to the Battery-Rundown test conducted by the folks at computershopper.com, the battery only lasted a few minutes over four hours, which is decent, but is under what other similar computers can do. On the other hand, based on average use, you should in fact get over six hours of autonomy, which should be satisfying.

In terms of connectivity and ports, the AO722 features three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out connector, a Kensington cable-locking slot, Ethernet, headphone and microphone jacks, a flash-card reader, but also full-size HDMI. This is more than you could hope to find on most mini-laptops right now.

The AO722 could be your perfect travel companion, with its lightweight and portability.

Pricing

As we already stated, a netbook’s popularity depends very much on its price and affordability. And while the AO722 has its weak points in other areas, when it comes to pricing things are almost ideal. Acer’s netbook is available right now on Amazon for 279.99 dollars, which is a couple of bucks under the price of other similar mini-laptops on the market.

Wrap-up

Is this netbook light and portable? It definitely is. Is it affordable? Pretty much so. Is it snappy and fast? Well, the processor is not great, but it does run full HD content and that is certainly a plus. Aside from that, it features a decent battery and a large number of ports.

Overall, the Acer AO722 could well be considered the perfect device for students, both in terms of design and capabilities, and is also targeted on people who are on a tight budget and want to have a decent traveling companion.

For a more detailed review of the netbook and a closer look at what it can do, you can check out this following video review from netbooknews.com:

Best Chrome netbooks – what is a ChromeBook and top picks on such devices

Adrian — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 09:42:09 +0000

First there were laptops, then they started calling them notebooks, then netbooks came into the story and now you have ChromeBooks. While for technology geeks and fanatics these terms are easy to separate, for most people the computer market is starting to get a little confusing. As in reality, there’s a very thin line that separates all these types of portable laptops between them, making it difficult for the average computer user to distinguish which one is better suited for what he needs and his budget.

The following post will try to explain as simple as possible what is a chromebook( or a Chrome netbook), what are its characteristics, its strong and weak points and its convenience. Also, we will have a quick look at the first chromebooks available on the market right now and we will see if these are worth your money or not.

What is a Chromebook?

As you can probably guess, a Chromebook is a netbook powered by Google’s Chrome operating system. While it is basically very similar to a classic Windows operated netbook, there are several important differences between the two.

The Samsung Series 5 was the first chromebook released on the market

First of all, Chromebooks are designed to be used while connected to the Internet and therefore are consistently more capable than Windows operated netbooks when it comes to web surfing. At least in theory. In practice though, they are pretty much the same, but come with a big flaw: you can only use the apps associated with the OS when you have an Internet connection, as all of them are WebServices and they are not installed on the computer, hence cannot be used offline. For me, that’s a deal-breaker.

Netbooks with Google Chrome boot in eight seconds and resume instantly from stand-by (or at least that is what Google says). So they should offer you faster web access that regular Windows based computers do.

Another important difference between a Chromebook and a traditional PC is that a Chromebook updates itself automatically. Unlike a regular netbook or notebook, which will nag you with annoying update prompts, a Chromebook will itself take care of everything and will ensure your apps are always up-to-date and your operating system is always updated to the latest version. Last but not least, Chromebooks run the first consumer operating system designed from the start to protect against malware or viruses. In other words, you will not have to install yourself an antivirus or antimalware program, because Chromebooks provide multiple layers of protection, including sandboxing, data encryption and verified boot.

Strong/weak points

While Chromebooks come with some pretty interesting features and options, especially designed to hit Windows based netbooks and notebooks where it hurts them the most, there are some weak points to netbooks with Google Chrome.

The Acer AC700 is fast, strong, reliable and also affordable.

Besides the entire online only story, you can only run dedicated apps on Chrome netbooks. While the idea of getting your apps from a single place, the Chrome Web Store, is not bad, the reality is that the Chrome OS is still far from being a real competitor for Windows when it comes to applications (there are only few available right now and many of them aren’t really as easy to use as the ones on Windows based computers). Yes, maybe in time that might change, but for early adopters that’s a real problem and right now, the Chrome Web Store does not offer competitive alternatives for many of the programs we use on Windows or Mac.

Also, Chromebooks usually come with 16 or 32 GB of SSD storage space. Since most of your content and apps are “in the Cloud”, users should not need proper storage space on their machines. At least that’s what they say, I for one beg to differ.

Best available Chrome netbooks

If you are looking for the best Chrome netbook on the market right now, you don’t have to look far. There are only two models of netbooks operated by the Chrome OS, both of them released in the last two months.

The first is the Samsung Series 5, available right now at Amazon for 429.99 dollars( the Wi-Fi only model) or for $499.99( the 3G version). This Samsung netbook comes with a pretty decent design, being available in silver or white, and impresses in terms of portability, weighing only 3.3 pounds.

The Samsung Series 5 Chrome OS netbook is powered by a 1.66 GHz dual-core Intel Atom N570 processor and features a beautiful 12.1-inch high-resolution, non-glare display. The chromebook also features two USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 memory card reader and a 1-megapixel webcam. Also, it comes with a battery that should last for up to eight and a half hours, but thosre more like 5-6 in practice.

The other chromebook that you can find right now on the computer market is the Acer AC700, which sells for 349 dollars( the Wi-Fi only version) or 430 dollars( the 3G model). This is very similar to the Samsung Series 5 in terms of features and technical specifications.

The Google Chrome OS is perfect for those of you who surf on the web most of the time spent on the computer

However, the Acer AC700 features an 11.6-inch HD widescreen LED-backlit LCD with 1366×768 pixels resolution and comes with a more modest battery, that only lasts for about six hours (more like 4 and a half in practice).

Wrap-up

There are many things we could add about Chrome netbooks. As a wrap up though, they are devices mainly designed for Internet activities: chatting, browsing, writing emails, watching some content online, etc. But all these are possible on a netbook as well, and even more, as those computers can actually be used offline as well, while Chromebooks can’t . Of course, these Chrome mini laptops boot up faster and are theoretically more secure (no viruses, malware, etc), but all these pail when faced with sluggish performances and poor apps (if available).

Thus, if Chrome netbooks would run for like 200 bucks, they would be devices we could easily recommend as travel companions or secondary computers. I don’t see any reasons though why we should shove 400+ bucks for something that’s poorer than a $300 netbook during everyday use, just because it’s the “new thing”.

Cause all in all, right now Chrome netbooks could only be called “your other mini laptop”, useful for daily browsing when you don’t want to lug around a full-size machine. But once again, that’s what you get with netbooks as well and even more, for a lower price.

Acer AspireRevo AR3700- affordable nettop with Nvidia ION graphics

Mark — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:00:24 +0000

The Aspire Revo AR3700 is one of Acer’s stabs at the currently booming market of nettops. These mini computers, usually having the size of a book, have enough power in them to deal with most day to day tasks, all this while consuming very little power, occupying very little space and making almost no noise. Sounds like the perfect setup for a Home Theater, right? A powerful computer you don’t have to tweak for too long and that lets you jump in some HD playback or a little gaming.

This is why nettops are so popular these days- they touch a soft spot with most users, and I’m talking about casual consumers just looking for a classy and smooth solution for streaming content onto their HDTV sets, without having to deal with all the hassles of a media box, which usually can have incompatibility issues and can’t run all types of content. Well, the AspireRevo AR3700 sure can. But let’s leave that for later and just take a look at the features and design first.

As most nettops, the AR3700 has a vertical design and looks like a book “standing up”. It has a plastic support underneath, but you can always detach it and set it up on the back of a big screen TV. It’s black and discrete and will fit any small place you can find near your TV. The nettop weighs only 1.4 pounds, basically netbook territory.

The AR3700 is small and takes in much less power than a normal PC

Anyway, you won’t have to carry it around too much, as after you set it up, there’s no need to maneuver it again very soon- except if you want to clean it, of course, or connect something to it. In terms of hardware, the AR3700 presents itself very reasonable. It has a dual core, Intel Atom D525 processor, with a clock speed of 1.8 GHZ. The processor is optimized for video performance and low power consumption, which are two essential features for any successful nettop.

To help out with HD decoding, you also get Integrated NVIDIA ION graphics, which come with support for 3D gaming, Blu Ray playback and DirectX 10 applications. It would have been nice for the video card to come with dedicated memory, as the chip will chew on the system memory, which is only 2 GB. Still, the setup should work fine for basic computing and gaming, as well as HD playback.

In terms of storage, you get a 250 GB hard disk drive with a spin speed of 5400 rpm. The nettop doesn’t have a optical drive, but there are 6 USB ports you can use to connect an external DVD or BLU RAY drive. There’s also a WiFi N module for very fast streaming and connectivity with remote servers or home networks. If you have a serious internet connection to pair it with, WiFi N guarantees very fast download, so streaming HD content from sites like Lovefilm.com or Hulu will not be a problem, as with older wireless modems.

The nettop has all the ports you could need, including USB and HDMI

Of course, if you prefer standard cable connections, there’s also a Ethernet port. In order to connect the nettop to a display, you have two options, a HDMI port (which is for linking with a HD TV) and VGA, that is compatible with older types of TVs and displays. There’s also a multi in 1 card reader slot, which is great if you want to quickly look at pictures or copy some content from a variety of standards, including SD, MMC, Memory Stick PRO and others.

The nettop, available now from Amazon for just $344.99, comes with a VESA stand, which is a device that lets you hook up the computer on the back of a TV, so you don’t have to keep it on the floor or anywhere it could be an inconvenience. Overall, the AR3700 is an excellent desktop replacement for your living room and can deliver stunning HD playback, as well as above the line performance when it comes to basic computing or some light gaming.

Acer Aspire One AOD255E- light and thin affordable netbook

Mark — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:36:03 +0000

What a name on this one! But, as you probably noticed over the netbook packed last couple of years, manufacturers usually play around with the titles of some models and roll out different variations which are not very different to what we’ve seen before. So what does the AOD255E has to offer that’s truly remarkable?

Well, it might be the ultra portability factor, which is kind of decisive when shopping for a netbook. I mean, even if a netbook can deliver above average visual performance (which is great, by the way), in the end what really sells a netbook are the features that synch with an “on the go” life style. So let’s take a look and see if this curiously named netbook has those features.

In terms of design, the 10 inch AOD255E is pretty standard. It has a plastic finish and comes in a variety of colors, including the routine black, blue, black and gray. It has a standard 93% keyboard with big keys that are easy to press and offer a good feedback. The touch pad is rather comfy and supports multi touch gestures, like pinch and zoom or page flip, so browsing pages will be a little more fun than usual scrolling and increasing text size with keyboard commands.

the 93% keyboard is big enough for easy, everyday use

The display has a 1024 x 600 resolution, which is kind of the standard for entry level netbooks. It offers good visual performance, but nothing stellar, like the brave and few ones coming with a 1366 x 768 resolution. Still, it will take you through basic tasks, like writing documents, checking emails and stuff like that.

The AOD255E is only 1 inch thin and weights 2.7 pounds, which is a decent load if you’ll be always on the go. It will fit in almost any bag without a problem and you don’t even have to buy a separate bag for it, as the plastic build doesn’t need extra protection than what your school bag or purse can offer. Moving on to the internals, the 10 incher comes with a single core Atom N455 processor, running at 1.66 GHZ.

It’s not much, that’s true, but for most common tasks is pretty good. It’s paired with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM, but you can always upgrade to 2 GB, which will increase the performance tremendously. There’s a 250 GB hard drive with a 5400 rpm speed- it’s not great, but with less pretentious tasks, you will not feel the difference between this one and a 7200 rpm version.

The OS is Windows 7 Starter, which doesn’t have all the features of a full fledged Home or Premium, but it’s efficiency oriented and requires less CPU and RAM to run. If you’re a power user, you should think about switching to a superior OS version. As for the multimedia part, there’s the classic Intel GMA 3150, which comes with support for DirectX 9 and will help with local and streamed video playback.

The 16:9 aspect ratio makes the netbook easy to carry around in a bag

Bundled together with Starter, there are a couple of non essential software bits you should get rid off, but maybe you would like to hold on to Microsoft Office Starter. The suite might prove useful for your job or schooling.

In terms of connectivity, you get WiFi N, which is much faster than usual WiFi networks, but it’s not as spread as the older version. Nevertheless, the module is backward compatible and will be able to connect to any type of hotspot.

Battery life is said to last for 8 hours on a single charge, which is decent enough if you’re in need of a full work day solution or a replacement for all your school papers and books.

The AOD522E comes in a variety of colors

The AOD522E is on sale from Amazon for just $279.99, which is a more than decent price for such a light weight and productivity oriented machine. The netbook gained good reviews from Amazon buyers, who hailed the long battery life and portability.

Acer Aspire One AO522- entry level netbook with HD abilities

Mark — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:35:34 +0000

The Acer Aspire One AO522 is one of the entry level netbooks from Acer, although it has some features that might recommend it for a higher category. As netbooks go, they all kind of have the same features and when one gets its head out of the water (but keeps an aggressive price tag), it can drive off to instant success.

It might be the case with the A0522, which has some interesting features and a balanced price tag, which made it fairly popular amongst buyers. But let’s see how this 10 inch netbook behaves at a quick look. It has a standard Aspire One plastic finish, with a good grip and an overall solid construction.
Unfortunately, it has a glossy feel to it and fingerprints will stick to the lid in no time.

The keyboard is pretty large, but the keys are kind of flat and there’s not quite a great feeling pressing them. But if you’re more of a functionalist, it shouldn’t be a problem. The touch pad supports multi touch gestures and it has an “in between” finish, meaning it’s not too smooth or too rough. In the end, it will be a problem of personal opinion and previous experience.

The AO522 comes with a premium HD screen

The screen is the first thing that sets the A0522 apart from the crowd of netbooks cornering us every day. It has a 1280 x 720 resolution, which is the standard resolution for HD playback, namely the 720p standard.

It’s a premium HD screen on a netbook and delivers better performance than other displays, which usually use the 1024 x 600 resolution. The reason for such a good screen is the fact that the A0522 uses a next gen AMD Fusion APU, which is a combo of processor and video card.

The processor for this particular netbook is the C-30, which is a single core processor running at 1 GHZ, bundled together with Radeon HD 6250 graphics. The video card, as the name says, can deliver HD graphics and is compatible with DirectX 11. The processor by itself is not very fast, but can still deliver a balanced experience, focused mainly on browsing and some light productivity work.

The exterior has the classic Aspire One design

The thing is that the included HD graphics delivers a better browsing and streaming experience, something faster processors with poor video integration can’t do. The standard system memory is 1 GB and keep in mind that part of it goes to the HD 6250. So you might want to consider to go for 2 GB from the get go.

There’s also a 250 GB HDD and connectivity is possible through WIFi N and blue tooth. The OS is, as usual, Windows 7 Starter, which is a good solution considering the rather slow, single core processor and highly limited system memory. However, if you’ll go for 2 GB of RAM, you might want to change the OS, as Starter has its limitations.

There’s also a 1.3 MP web cam on top of the screen, with a resolution of 1280 x 1024, so video calling is definitely an option with this netbook. On the downside, the netbook offers only 6 hours of battery life with the included juice maker; considering that many netbooks out there come with over 10 hours of autonomy, the AO522 seems a little weak in this department.

The 16:9 aspect ratio has its advantages also when it comes to transportation

But, on the other hand, most other netbooks don’t come with HD displays and graphics. The AO522 is available from Amazon for just $329.99, which is a good price considering it comes with a premium HD display and HD capable video card. It’s a setup we don’t see everyday and definitely deserve the extra bills required to buy it.

Acer Aspire One AO751 Unboxing Photos

Andrew — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:04:10 +0000

Acer Aspire One AO751

Yugatech is showing photos of the Acer Aspire One AO751, which is the latest netbook from Acer. It sports a 12-inch display which is about the same size of some regular laptops. It is powered by Intel Atom X520 which uses lesser power. The new netbook lasts for 8 hours for a single charging, which makes the device belong to ODC category. Also under the hood are the 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD.

More photos at Yugatech.com

11.6″ Acer Aspire One gets Official

Andrew — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:09:02 +0000

The larger Acer Aspire One has now been officially announced and comes with only a bit difference with the other AA1. It will sport the usual Atom processor, 160GB hard disk estate, 1 GB RAM, and maybe the ports around the case. Apart from the larger-but-thinner form factor, it also has Bluetooth, 3G, Dolby Pro Logic Sound plus the 5200mAh battery that keeps the netbook alive up to 8 hours.

Now the only remaining question is when it’s gonna be available and how much it would cost.

Linpus Linux Quick OS Video

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:27:56 +0000

Sascha of Netbooknews.de got a quick sneak peek of the instant on OS that Linux offers. From the video it took around 10 secs to complete bootup. The OS is not embedded on the BIOS like Splashtop, but installed on the hard disk. The OS is very light but no exact size was mentioned. The video props an Acer Aspire One which originally comes with Linpus Lite.

8.9 inch SSD Netbooks Price Drops

Andrew — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:11:42 +0000

As part of inventory sales, netbook makers are dropping the prices for their 8.9 netbooks and apparently for smaller sizes ssd-based. Looks like HDD is getting more practical on netbooks since it has larger storage capacity in lesser costs. SSD as we all know has lesser capacity but the prices are very high considering the estate. Now the only advantage we could see for SSD is the ability to r/w faster than HDD (not all times), and avoid breaking itself with major shocks.

In Taiwan, Acer has dropped their price for the 8GB 8.9 inch Aspire One to NT$6999 ($202 USD), while AsusTek puts a tag price of as low as NT$6500 ($187 USD) for their 7″ netbooks and NT$8999 ($260 USD) on 20GB 8.9″ netbooks.

via Digitimes

Acer Aspire One 103 comes to the Philippines

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:34:18 +0000

Yuga spotted the new 10-incher from Acer, the Aspire One 103. It was reported to not be available until March 15 but seems that Octagon store has got their hands on the netbook much earlier than expected.

The Acer Aspire One 103 sports the Intel Atom N280, 10.1″ screen at 1024×600, 1GB RAM, 320GB SATA HDD, plus all other specs common to netbooks. The said Aspire One costs 23,900, few grands cheaper than first reported.