Cool Stuffs Review

I'll start with the bottom line: AAO 10.1" is an excellent netbook. I highly recommend it.

I chose it over the competition for one main reason: the manufacturing glitch due to which it ships with an "oversized" battery. This is not guaranteed, but I received it from Amazon on 02/27/09 and I was delighted to see that it did have the big battery. I tested it repeatedly, and the rumors are true: it goes on for 8 hours on one charge, while doing a combination of Web surfing, movie/music playing, word processing, anti virus file scanning and even some Matlab heavy computations, all with WiFi and Bluetooth on (see below).

In the pros & cons list below, I'm comparing it to my regular DELL Latitude D830 laptop.

Pros:
- Very portable, due to enormous battery life, small size, light weight and, last but not least, the fact that it stays cool (the DELL can really burn my lap).
- Fast boot up ~25-30sec; DELL takes 3-4 minutes on a good day. I know, this depends on the software configuration, not just hardware, so it may happen because it is a new clean computer. However, I typically put it in stand-by, and then it wakes up in 2 (yes, two!) seconds.
- Very fast WiFi connectivity, much better than the DELL (I mean the time to establish the connection to my Belkin wireless router, the data transfer speed is standard, I guess).
- Reasonable performance: most day-to-day tasks are as fast as (or faster than) DELL. Sheer number crunching (I'm doing a lot of scientific programming) is 4-5 times slower than DELL(with its dual core), but then it costs 4-5 times less, weighs 1/3 and runs 4-5 times longer. I'll take the Acer almost any day.
- For the kind of work I'm doing, I often need more than the 1GB of memory it comes with. I ordered from Amazon, received and installed a replacement of the standard 1GB SODIMM with the largest supported 2GB (Crucial 2GB 667 MHz CT25664AC667 DDR2 200-Pin SODIMM Laptop Memory, $24@Amazon). Installation was easy, except that one must be careful with removing the memory cover after taking out the screws - there are some stubborn small plastic prongs that are easy to break.
- Works well with my external USB DVD R/W drive.
- Bright screen, although I would have preferred it matte.
- Good sound.
- Reasonable keyboard (but I don't touch-type).
- Pretty solidly built.
- Beautiful blue color; not crazy about the exterior shiny finish though.

Cons:
- Actually I found only one significant design flaw: the touchpad buttons are extremely stiff, and the touchpad is very small - almost unusable. However, I am always carrying a small Bluetooth mouse with me, so it is not an issue.
- No built-in Bluetooth for my mouse and phone synch. However, I got a Bluetooth USB 2.0 Micro Adapter Dongle from Amazon ($5.50 with S&H). The only downside is that (a) 1 USB port is taken up by the BT dongle and (b) the dongle, albeit very, very small, still protrudes ¼" out of the side of the computer, so I need to be careful not to break the connector when I throw the computer around. BT works ok, but sometimes (rarely) the Bluetooth connection is not restored when the computer wakes up from stand-by, and I need to restart the BlueSoleil driver.
- Not a real complaint, but more of a wish: There is a little slot inside the battery compartment for a wireless 3G phone SIM card, but they haven't actually put the hardware in yet. It would be totally cool to access the Internet on 3G from anywhere on such a portable netbook.

Bottom line: excellent value for the money. I think my wife may want one too...
Get more detail about Acer Aspire One AOD150-1920 10.1-Inch Ruby Red Netbook - 6.5 Hour Battery Life.