Ultra portable laptops were usually reserved for business travelers. No one really bought one because they wanted one because they are usually underpowered and expensive. With the high price tag, you're paying for diminutive size which their PR masterminds spins it as "ultra portable".

Acer changed one thing in that game: they lowered the price - BIG TIME. My particular model was priced at $415 for the Windows XP version that comes with 120GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM and a 6-cell battery. How did they get it so low? First of all, the Intel Atom processor is pretty low in price, while energy efficient so the battery did not need to have a lot of capacity (the 3-cell version last as long as a standard laptop). Also, the 9.8" LCD is the same one used on portable DVD players. Cooling also doesn't need to be elaborate since the Atom runs much cooler than the Core 2.

Asus started this small and inexpensive "netbook" trend with their EeePC, but I must say that Acer nearly perfected. As time went on, Asus created an EeePC with 9.8" LCD with an Intel Atom, but the price was as much as one of those Fry's special 15" laptops (which is also better equiped and more powerful). Their EeePC 901 just didn't make sense at $600. The Acer Aspire One have the same features as the EeePC 901 with a lower price point, making them the new netbook winner.

Not everything is rosey though. Read on to find out what sucks.

Design
The Acer Aspire One looks sleek and cute. The one I bought is blue, which is one of two colors available right now (the other being white). Acer plans on many other colors, including pink, brown, and boring black.

Black and white are all played out. Blue looked unique, even though everyone who ones an Aspire One now thinks the same way (doh!). Still, the dark blue is still pretty cool looking. The lid is glossy so it attracts a lot of finger prints.

Once opened, the 9.8 inch display is surrounded by about half an inch of black glossy border. A web cam sits on the top center of the bezel, while the mic is situated just to the left of it.

The keyboard is one of the most important things to look for in a netbook. I didn't like any of the Asus EeePC keyboards (I didn't get to use their 10” EeePC 1000H model) as they were too small. Then again, the Aspire One is a bit larger to accommodate a usable keyboard. I think it's a good trade off since I didn't notice the size difference until I saw the EeePC 900 and 901 placed on top of the Acer Aspire One.

The touchpad is also very important, and this is where I feel Acer dropped the ball. It is awkward to use since Acer decided to put the buttons on the side of the touchpad instead of below it. While I understand most users don't even really use the left button (they just tap the touchpad to invoke a mouse click), there are some instances where a physical button helps (such as drag and dropping icons from one end of the screen to the other). The right mouse button, however, is so awkwardly placed that I keep going for the bottom of the touchpad instinctively whenever I want to open up a context sensitive menu in Windows or Ubuntu. The touchpad itself, though, feels good and acts just right. This is thanks to Acer using a Synapstic part. Synapstic always made great touchpads (I should know – my other laptop came with something else!).

There is a model of the Aspire One that includes a friendly version of Linpus Linux, which resides on a 8GB SSD. This mean that storage expansion was important. Thus, there are many options to use memory cards. Since the Windows version of the Aspire One is the same as the Linux version (except with a large hard drive and more memory to cope with Microsoft's gorging ways), you still get the same benefits of being able to read multiple types of memory cards here. On the left, there is a SD Card reader that was really meant for the Linux version of the One to expand the SSD storage space. In Linpus Linux, Acer used a special driver to make a SD Card merge with the SSD to make one large drive. In Windows, there is no such driver, so it is just a SD Card reader. On the right, there is also a multi-format card reader that also reads SD Cards as well as XD and Sony's Memory Stick. So in Windows, you can stick two SD Cards and access both of them. SD Cards is basically the Acer Aspire One's floppy replacement. Not a bad thing, since SD Cards are so cheap now.

There are 3 USB ports (one on the left, two on the right), which isn't too bad. All of them are USB 2.0, so they are indeed high speed. A standard 15-pin VGA connector flanks the left side along with an Ethernet port that sports a Realtek RTL-8102 10/00 Mbit chip that sits on a PCI-E bus (very important to know if you make bootable Symantec Ghost network disks). The jack for the AC Adapter also resides on the same side. The cooling vent is also located on this side (man, this side gets pretty busy!)

On the right side, the mic and headphone jacks live with the other USB ports and card reader. A Kingston security slot hole is also located on this side, close to the lid hinge.

The screen is clear and sharp. The resolution is perfect for the size (1024x600), since fonts are not too small nor too big. Unfortunately, if you do a lot of Remote Desktop or VNC accessing, you'll hate it, since most people will have a higher resolution than you. This means a lot of scrolling around the remote desktop to do your job. I also found that some media players insist on playing videos at 100%, causing some videos to push controls and title bars of the player off screen.

Performance
The Intel Atom N270 is simply adequate for web surfing and typing up reports. You won't be playing much video games on the Aspire One. If the odd screen resolution didn't prevent you from playing, the integrated Intel GMA950 might. While the GMA950 is powerful enough for Vista's Aero Glass, it is limited to less demanding games such as World of Warcraft. However, being paired up with the Atom means that some games may still run slow even though the graphics is not the bottleneck. Plus, you can forget about running Vista unless you are a very patient person.

Honestly, though, with a speedy 120 GB HDD (much faster than the 8GB SSD offered on the Linux version) and a gig of RAM, the Intel Atom is perfectly matched up with Windows XP for some real productive work. Don't forget that the sizable keyboard is perfect for... um... work. :)

I did not perceive any lag or slowness while surfing with IE6, IE7, or Firefox. The included trial version MS Office 2007 takes a bit longer to load, but once up and running, I have no problems using it.

In Use
As stated before, the keyboard is one of the best out of all the netbooks I've used. There is a small complaint - lack of a dedicated Home and End keys (which is important if you do a lot of word processing such as writing ePinion reviews). The touchpad, however, is a mixed bag. The buttons are awkwardly placed, but the touchpad itself is gravy. The screen is bright, clear, and sharp, but the strange resolution mean that some games may not run, and it also mean that you will have to scroll around a lot if you do a lot of remote desktop accessing.

The speakers of the Acer Aspire One isn't that great, but that is to be expected. It can get pretty loud, but it will distort badly. When adjusting for the loudest setting without distortion, I must say that it sounds as good as (and as loud as) most cell speakers playing an MP3 or ring tone.

The web cam may be of a low resolution, but light sensitivity is excellent. In a dark room, you can still see yourself clearly lit by the 9.8” screen! Audio pick up from the mic isn't so great, however. You can hear a bit of static, and it doesn't help that the fan from the CPU cooler can be heard.

Of course, that's yet another complaint. While the fan isn't that particularly loud, it is always on and can drive you nuts in a quiet room. The low hum can't really be heard in most environments though.

A lack of an optical drive also mean that rolling your own OS may prove to be difficult. You can get around this by purchasing an external optical drive such as the LG External LightScribe Slim DVD Burner. The other way around it is create a bootable USB flash drive that has a copy of the installation files, but it's a lot of hard work and googling.

Okay, I see that it's starting to feel negative in here, so I'll end it on a high note: battery life. The Aspire One last around 6 hours 45 minutes on the included 6-cell 5500mAH battery on Windows XP while surfing on the web and watching a few XviD and YouTube videos. This also mean that the WiFi radio was on the whole time. The screen brightness was turned down as low as it can go (which is still easily legible). I also have Ubuntu installed, and found that it only last around 4 hours 35 minutes, which is significantly lower than when using Windows! Windows seem to have better power management than Ubuntu 8.04.

Speaking of which, Ubuntu relatively easy on the One. Most of the devices were detected. I had to fiddle with the WiFi to get it working (Google “Ubuntu on Acer Aspire One” for the write-up). Other than that, graphics, sound, and wired Ethernet worked out of the box.

Upgrading
I was afraid to crack open the Aspire One. Afterall, they packed a lot in there! The only accessable panel is to access a mini-PCIE slot. Even a simple memory upgrade or hard drive replacement requires you to take the entire unit apart.

It's sounds worse than it is, though. The Acer Aspire One is relatively easy to take apart once you get started. While I admit there are a lot of screws, I didn't end up with any "spares" after putting it back together. There are videos and photos documenting the process on the internet everywhere! Get comfortable by watching others do it!

Once inside, Acer makes it even harder on you by placing the only available DIMM slot on the bottom side, which means you have to take the motherboard out of the chassis! By the time you get to the memory slot and the hard drive, you will be looking at an empty plastic shell.

There is 512 MB of DDR2-533 RAM soldered on the board (on the top side of the motherboard). While it seems contrary to common sense, I understand why Acer did this. A DIMM slot on top would protrude into the area where the keyboard would reside. The maximum the Intel chipset would recognize is 2GB of RAM. Since there is no 1.5 GB stick of RAM, the most you can put in the single available slot is a 1GB stick, making the maximum memory size 1.5 GB. I was able to perform this upgrade myself.

The Hitachi 120 GB 5400 RPM hard drive uses a standard SATA connector, so that means upgrading the hard drive would be easy. I had an Hitachi 160 GB 5400 RPM SATA drive already on hand, so I decided to shove it in. Easy as pie - just need a few screws here and there.

While it is more cumbersome than most laptops to upgrade, if you get inside of the Aspire One even once, you'll feel comfortable doing it again. I've been inside many times now.

Conclusion
Acer did a lot of things right, while the wrongs are kept to a minimum. I must say, Acer out-netbooked Asus. While Asus started the game, Acer seem to be winning it. The price is right, the size is right, and the performance is right. Even the keyboard is done very well. The only real cons are touchpad buttons, awkward screen resolution, and the low-hum always-on cooling fan.

Acer is still keeping the netbook concept alive, while Asus seem to be like the rock star who sold out.

And yes, in case you are wondering - this review was completely written with the Aspire One (inside of Ubuntu and OpenOffice 2.4).

Amount Paid (US$): 415
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 10 inches
RAM: More than 256
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50