110 or 150 ... with a view to mod

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rjm

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I thought I was dead set on the 120GB version, but after seeing it in the store again today I'm having doubts...

120GB : comes with XP, runs XP nicely, has 100GB of storage for my CD collection and movies...

It also is 100g heavier, comes with a distinct bulge in the bottom case, and has less battery life. BUT with that SATA interface and 2.5" HDD slot I can upgrade later to a SSD quite conveniently.

8GB : slimline case, lighter, more battery life, solid state ... slow as molasses by all accounts. BUT I have the CD ZIF adapter so I could buy a fast 8 or 16GB CF card, or hunt around for a better ZIF SSD later when one comes out. I would not stick with Limpus but run Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Advice welcome..
 
What kind of modding are you thinking about doing? With the 150 being slightly bigger, wouldn't it be more open to modding?
 
Just my opinion, the A150 is a tad heavier but its not like a mobile phone where you really notice the extra weight. It's chassis is only marginally different in it's overall aesthetics. I only notice the 'bulge' if studying the underside of the laptop, or with the laptop at eye level. In other words, the minor changes they made to accomodate the HDD don't really take away anything from the overall attractiveness, day to day you probably aren't going to notice it imho, Clearly the extra space (both storage and physical room for a 2.5" drive) and SATA connectivity is a big plus. From what I read, battery life is very likely comparable to the SSD version, surprisingly. But if you get 5-10 mins more life on SSD is that really a factor that should weigh in all that strongly? Especially if you get the slow-ass SSD model ;)
 
Modding only in the sense that whichever one I get, the original drive that comes with is is going to be replaced sooner or later..

I hear what you guys are trying to say, and I certainly see the logic. The SSD version doesn't have a lot to recommend it, except aesthetically.

I decided on the 8GB version anyway. In principle yes, I could get the XP version, big HDD, more memory for hardly any more cash ... but for me, what I want is something that connects to the internet and runs a web browser. That's pretty much it. I could see that trying to shoehorn a full-fledged ultraportable in there it going to lead to tears. Yes, the XP version I could have Office 2007 on there and all my other software, but really, in brutal honesty - the A1 is simply not physically big enough to work on comfortably. I imagine myself trying to edit powerpoint presentations and - gack - run Gaussview and MatLab on there... and its just not a pretty picture. If I really wanted to do that, I should get a used Lenovo X41 or a Panasonic Toughbook instead. The cost is the same.

Going with the Linux SSD version forces me to curb my ambitions so to speak.
 
Nothing wrong with your thinking, however, you might find that your expectations grow a little once you've got your hands on one. For instance, eventually you may want to take your netbook with you on holiday/while stuck at the in-laws to provide some entertainment on the journey / relief. Naturally, there's plenty of space on there to load a selection of movies, etc.

Not directly related but interesting nonetheless, using Linpus Lite + VLC Media Player I wasn't able to play 720p h264 movie without dropping loads of frames; however with the same unit running XP and CoreAVC the same footage renders virtually perfectly; in this scenario having the HDD unit makes things easier (you won't need to spend time working around SSD).
 
runtime360 said:
Not directly related but interesting nonetheless, using Linpus Lite + VLC Media Player I wasn't able to play 720p h264 movie without dropping loads of frames; however with the same unit running XP and CoreAVC the same footage renders virtually perfectly; in this scenario having the HDD unit makes things easier (you won't need to spend time working around SSD).
Click to expand...

You sure it doesn't have more to do with the difference between VLC and CoreAVC? CoreAVC can be used on linux, so a more direct comparison would be interesting. As would a battery life comparison of the same video encoded in something like mpeg2 vs h.264.

As for having space for video, I'm planning to put it all on SD cards.
 
To some extent I'm sure it probably does but the difference was night and day, I would have expected a smaller difference in the playback performance between VLC and CoreAVC, in the same way that theres not a great deal of difference performance-wise between ffdshow and CoreAVC. Just comparing FireFox running on both OS's, rendering seems noticeably 'snappier' on XP (TinyXP). Running under Linpus the machine really struggled to play BBC iplayer content full-screen (both standard and high quality streams); under XP it played back fine. For my purposes at least, this makes the XP HDD config a more useful machine.
 
Of course it could be the HDD, but in theory the read speeds should not be too different. A lot depends on if the player properly uses the hardware video acceleration, and how much deblocking it tries to do.

I was trying 720p h264 last night, and it brought my Althon X2 3800+, ATI HD2600Pro system to its knees. It was an .mkv file under WMP. Now my video card should - does - have all the hardware support, but it clearly wasn't doing its job... I can safely say the problem wasn't the speed of my new SATA2 7200rpm 1TB hard drive!
 
I don't suspect read speeds to be an issue here, if I had to guess I'd say the video card acceleration under Linpus isn't up to the same standard as the XP drivers; the only resonable explanation I could find for the big discrepancy.

Also bear in mind BBC's iPlayer is a flash player, so it's performance under both systems better serves to illustrate the relative performance difference, at least in terms of scaling - versus VLC and CoreAVC who's implementations will vary more considerably despite them using many of the same open source libraries for decoding.

As an aside, for a year or two now, my Athlon X2 3800 has played back 720p H264 quite comfortably with CoreAVC just using it's integrated GeForce 6150 LE chipset; it struggles a bit to manage 1080p but it's definately watchable. I also have a Core 2 Duo box that can handle it even more gracefully (essentially all that amounts to is the CPU usage being in the 40% range, as opposed to 60-70%). In comparison the Aspire One, does remarkably well although it's using close to it's maximum processing power, dropping a frame occasionally in complex scenes.

Sorry this has turned into an OS discussion, my bad! ;)
 
Now worries, a good thread hijack keeps things interesting...

Do you remember that one of the sticking points on the preview units that got passed around to review websites early on was said to be video? That and the WiFi iirc. So they were having problems that may have not been fully addressed.

I don't have anything against XP or Microsoft in general. Just that somehow Linux seems like such a better fit, consistent with the smaller-lighter-cheaper netbook mantra. I fully agree that XP has a polish to it that the Linux distros do not, but the overhead that goes with that seems out of place on a netbook. Who am I kidding: XP is boring, Linux is fun, and the A1 is (for me) the perfect vehicle for enjoying it. I may acually stick with Limpus for a while, at least until a dedicated A1 install of UbNR comes along, since Acer will be actively supporting it, and that 17 second Limpus boot time is mighty attractive.

For the record: I switched my Aspire One choice from the blue 120GB XP version with the Japanese OS and keyboard for a new US version of the white A110L off eBay. Factor in the shipping , and the cost was essentially the same. Funny how my color preference switched mid way: for the first couple of weeks I was 100% gung ho on the blue!

PS. On my own H264 video woes: the same vid played without skipping with the DIVX player, though Aero got disabled and the video was clearly not as sharp or as artifact free as with WMP. CPU usage was the same, about 60%. Go figure. Just goes to show that one result does not a pudding make.
 
I think the SSD version is a fine choice, it is the one I'll likely get myself.

I will be modding it also. A 1.8" drive will be fine for me, I do not need more than 60gb of space. I just want enough space to be able to get my code over there for work if I want to. A bit more ram and bluetooth and I'll be good to go.

In the end, modding it will be a bit more expensive, but it will be rewarding as well. Plus, as you mentioned, you'll have the sleeker case which isn't a very big deal, but to some it matters more than others.

All in all, I think you made the right choice, especially if you will be modding it.
 
My vote: Go for the 150. ;)
The 2.5" HDD is well worth it, and saves a lot of troubles with ZIF cables when upgrading.
In terms of batterylife, the choice between SSD or HDD doesnt make a remarkable difference.
For speed: SSD is still slower than HDD, but obviously brings the convieniance not breaking down easily.
Having said that.. I have owned numorious laptops over the last 8 years and i've never had any HDD break down (except when overwritting the MBR, which was my own mistake ;) ).

Having 120gb is just super sweet.. even if you do decide to run Linux only (its still nice to store multiple distros, music, your mame rom collection etc). Hell.. You can even keep your XP on the side... The performance isnt bad at all, so still quiete usable for all your Office stuff. Basically i think it all comes down to if 8gb is enough compared to the price of 120gb.
 
ruckus said:
I will be modding it also. A 1.8" drive will be fine for me, I do not need more than 60gb of space.
Click to expand...
Anyway, highest storage capacity is now 160GB I think, but I don't know if this one comes with a ZIF interface.
 
edgecrush3r said:
In terms of batterylife, the choice between SSD or HDD doesnt make a remarkable difference.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't be so sure. To start with, a 2,5" uses twice as much power as a 1,8" (on average). We would need to know how much power the SSD unit uses, for comparison.
 
Generally the SSDs out in the market haven't really overwhelmingly shown much of an improvement (although there are a couple out there that are more efficient than their HDD equivalent). With the Aspire One retailing at a low price point, the price of it's component parts would be a very big factor in trying to keep the bill of materials as low as possible; much more so than say power consumption.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd ... ,1968.html
July 14, 2008

"The truth is that no general conclusion, such as “Flash SSDs are more efficient,” can be drawn at this point for the majority of the Flash SSDs on the market. Performance, efficiency and performance per watt typically depend on the specific workload, and some hard drives are surprisingly efficient in certain disciplines."

"Some Flash SSDs were designed to be performers and they deliver on that promise regardless of power consumption (although performance per watt is typically great). Many others, especially first-generation drives, simply do not serve up the same solid results."

"A look at the rest of the test bed reveals two results, one of which supports the conclusion we made in the initial article: mainly, Flash SSDs are not there yet and some may even contribute to emptying your notebook’s battery more quickly."

"We recommend against purchasing any Flash SSD without knowing details about performance and power requirements. Flash SSDs do not inherently contribute to increasing battery life and better efficiency comes with the appropriate Flash SSD used for a specific application. "Flash SSD" is not a qualifier for efficiency or performance."

"Huge differences do not only exist between various Flash SSDs, but also between mechanical hard drives."
 
rjm said:
Who am I kidding: XP is boring, Linux is fun, and the A1 is (for me) the perfect vehicle for enjoying it. I may acually stick with Limpus for a while, at least until a dedicated A1 install of UbNR comes along, since Acer will be actively supporting it, and that 17 second Limpus boot time is mighty attractive.
Click to expand...

I should be getting my One tomorrow or the day after and I have been thinking about which OS to use for some time now. I have never been a fan of Windows (I'll stop there, I don't want to ignite a religious war) so it's down to MacOS X, Ubuntu or Linpus.

I shall probably try OSX but there are too many hardware incompatibilities to use this as the main OS.

I am a very big fan of Ubuntu but the hardware support issues running it on the One have proved to be surprisingly many and intractable.

I used to use RedHat and Fedora about 2-3 years ago and they were OK but Ubuntu swept me off my feet and I haven't looked back. Consequently, I didn't fancy Linpus much to start with and I consider myself too much of a hacker to use a "cut-down" OS. However, the 17 second boot time IS very appealing and at least all the hardware works so I have decided to give Linpus a serious try, albeit in heavily modified form.

Fortunately, I already have Ubuntu and Xubuntu installed on flash drives so I can try those out without wiping Linpus.

One thing I will say though is "Linpus" - what a terrible name.
 
lotus49 said:
I shall probably try OSX but there are too many hardware incompatibilities to use this as the main OS.
Click to expand...
Well, check out the OSX forum here: there are not that many hurdles left...
 
Re the power consumption of SSD, and the Toms Hardware article.

The early high-performance SSD drives ran hot, apparently with no power management to power down the controller when not active. A followup at Toms' made this clear.

The Intel SSD is not high performance! But it is definitey thrifty; the datasheet gives 314 mW active and a negligable 1.65 mW standby. By comparison an Hitachi 2.5" HDD draws about 1.8-2.3W when spinnning, reading and writing, and 200mW parked on standby.

The difference is about 1.7 W, or about 200 mW when the HDD spins down. Even if it was at spinning all the time, the extra 1.7 W would only change the battery life you'd experience by 10-20% since the monitor, CPU, memory and chipset already draw over 10 W.

With the HDD spinning down after a couple of minutes, a real world gain of 10-20 minutes more battery life per charge might be expected.

SSDs are elegant, but in both performance and battery life peoples expections were just not realistic.
 
My A1 just arrived.

First moments vindicated my choice somewhat:

Love the US keyboard. So clean.

With an SSD there is no disk noise, no whirring of the spinning platters, no ticking of the heads. Silence but for the quiet fan. That makes it feel so much more solid and secure, I never have to worry about not knocking it when carrying it around, etc.

The fan speed varies, and the fan noise with it, with the load. From esentially silent to audible but smooth. I would never say it was annoying, and I'm a bit of a stickler for these things.

Finally I much prefer the slimmer case of the SSD model. It just looks and feels right when you pick it up ... which, being so small, you tend to do a lot. Trivial for most people, important to me.

The speed and overall responsiveness of Linux is truly impressive. 17 seconds boot up cannot be understated. And Open Office, Firefox etc run essentially as fast as on my Vista Desktop. Open Office if anything is a tad quicker to load on the Aspire One. All subjective at this point, but impressive nonetheless.

I find the faux-XP look of the Limpus dialog windows annoying, the OS does not use the screen real estate as well as it should, and the whole thing looks rather dated; still I'll leave the machine in its default config for a while to get used to it before changing anything.

Battery life, well lets just say I wouldn't want it to be any worse than on the Linux version! Even an extra 15-20 minutes is welcome when you've only got 2-3h.
 
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