Cool Stuffs Review

My first Aspire One A110 (8.9" screen, SSD) died from an unfortunate accident, and after looking at most of the available netbooks in June 2009, I decided to replace it with an A150. Acer must have listened to their customers and reviewers, as almost all the faults of the original model (small battery, small screen, wonky trackpad, no access to the internals without voiding the warranty) appear to have been rectified. It's surprising how much different the A150 is from its predecessor -- about the only thing that is unchanged is the keyboard -- which is one of the best, although not the largest, in this class. The 10.1" screen has the same resolution (1024 x 600) as the 8.9" screen, but the pixels are just enough bigger that readability and usability are significantly improved.

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 alongside Windows XP was a snap, and now I have the best of both worlds. Like most computers, Windows is installed with a lot of bloatware that takes up space and slows the machine down. With the extra baggage removed, Windows performance is very acceptable. Most of the time I use Ubuntu, booting into Windows only when absolutely necessary.

I would have given the A150 5 stars, but Acer does not include a recovery disc, and the machine nags you after initial setup to create one -- which is impossible unless you have an external optical drive. The recovery disc requires 2 DVDs or 8 CDs. Beg, buy or borrow an optical drive and make the recovery discs before doing anything to Windows.

A good support community exists for the AA1 line, for both Linux and Windows.Get more detail about Acer Aspire One AOD150-1920 10.1-Inch Ruby Red Netbook - 6.5 Hour Battery Life.