Are you happy with your Aspire One purchase

I'm about to pull the trigger and make a purchase. I got cold feet at the last moment when going to buy an Aspire One. I had to flee the store as I could not decide between an EeePC and an Aspire One leaving the store owner hanging.

I'd like to know if overall you guys are happy with your purchase of an Aspire One.

I'd really like to go for a 901 but I'm not sure if I can afford it. So its the Aspire One vs the EEEPC 900.

If you had a chance to make a decision, which of either one would you buy?

 

I'm mostly happy with mine, but you may want to wait a few weeks till the new models come out with bigger batteries and hard drives. The Linpus Linux operating system is a little too flaky for me, but for the most part it was everything I expected. It's quiet, it boots fast and the screen is sharp, clear and bright.

 

I don't imagine getting a battery bigger than the current 6 cell being offered might be of any use except for adding weight. There is a 160GB HD version available, even a 120GB is fine with me.

I'm more concerned about the size, price and weight in that order.

I like the small size and design of the Asus but I like the price of the Acer.

 

For me the size and weight of the AA1(120gb version) is Awesome, really small for business travel. Also I have above average size hands and the keyboard fits me just right. The only problem i have are the touchpad buttons are on the left/right sides of the touchpad, i am still trying to get used to it and ive had my AA1 for a month now.

Also i have no experience with any of the Asus EEE's so i cant compare the size/weight between the two unfortunately.

As for price i was lucky enough to get it at Bestbuy $249.99 + tax, check out this link. http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=228090&t=902577

 

I've had mine since mid August and have averaged 4 hours of use each day. I have upgraded it to 1.5G of memory, added a larger hard drive and installed Windows Vista Ultimate on it. I couldn't be happier with the performance, size, or weight of it and don't regret my purchase one bit. When I purchased mine at Microcenter, they had the Asus, Sylvania, Lifebook, and Acer all side-by-side. The Acer was certainly the best one in the $399 and below category, not only from a performance stand point but also the look and feel of the system. Since I have no experience with any of the Asus systems, I can't provide you with any comparisons other than my first impressions of what was available at Microcenter at the time of my purchase.

My only advice to you is that you will need to evaluate why you want a netbook computer. If you really need one now, then the Aspire One is the best one in its price class. If you can wait 6 months or so, the dual core Atom processors should be out and available, which will greatly increase the overall performance of the netbook class systems. You need to remember that no matter what brand you purchase today, it is really still an emerging technology (i.e. bleeding edge) - which can only be improved over time.

 

I've had my AA1 Linpus, 8gig SSD (White) for a few weeks now, and the initial doubts I had over the purchase have evaporated. I use it for surfing, e-mail, usenet, e-books, games, etc. etc. 3 to 4 hours a day.
I've only had to restore once, and that was my fault for uninstalling FF2, before upgrading to FF3, which kacked the OS. The fan's inaudible except in the dead of night, if I'm listening to internet radio over earphones the wife can just hear the fan. I've done the 'advanced mode' hack and installed extra ram, as well as the 'elevator noop' mod, but it's otherwise unchanged, My previous lappy was an Acer Aspire, I still have it, but reach for the AA1 first all the time.
So, Yes, I'm happy with my AA1

Keith

 

I am happy with mine, but for a couple of things. I took it on holiday with me to Majorca and though I could use it to read on the plane I could not listen to it as the sound was so poor and even with headphones there was not enough volume. I was not too disappointed as I had my Zen and that struggled as well but bearable, my wife's Ipod was terrible.

The second problem was Network, the Hotel I was in had free wifi, but I could not connect to it even though I had all the right settings, showed up in Network entered WEP and password and then it just froze. So I was a bit of a let down (personally feel it was Linpus) especially as others were connecting with no problems or adjustments using windoze. I have no problems at home with my wifi and others I have used on visits in the UK.

There were several people interested in it especially at the beach or it could of been my wife topless and were pretty impressed with its weight and I was stopped at Customs to ask what it was as I carried it in a normal bag rather than a laptop type.

I got it for one thing only and that was access to my GApps and for that reason it is just brilliant. I have the normal Linpus Desktop rather than the toy display, along with a few program tweaks (I.e. Scribus, Inkscape & Gimp) but keep it very clean and only load what I need. I am looking forward to 3G access so that I can use it at my caravan in the wilds of Yorkshire.

All I need now is just Google Chrome for Linux and will be a very happy bunny...

 

I'm very happy with my Aspire One purchase. (AOA-150, XP, 120gb) Bought it at Best Buy about a month ago. I have no complaints about it other than the flaky wi-fi, but so far the new BIOS update has fixed that.

The size and weight are perfect, screen is nice, it's fast enough for my needs (Internet/Programming), and the keyboard is comfortable to type on.

 

I'm quite happy with my One (8Gb SSD, 512Mb RAM). I use it 2-4 hours a day for surfing and net stuff, mostly. Oh yeah, it dual boots Linpus and XP pro, but I find Linpus does everything I need a small portable to do. XP is a little sluggish despite all the tweaks offered on this board, but is usable. Best $349.00 I've spent on computing in a while.

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I'm very happy with mine (1GB RAM/120GB HDD WinXP model). Like mesly33 above, I bought mine at Microcenter, and was able to compare the AA1 to the other offerings. One note - the Asus definitely has better placement of the touchpad buttons.

I went with the 120GB HDD model for the storage space, not for WinXP. My AA1 currently has Fedora, Ubuntu, and Linpus Lite on the HDD. The only non-working feature I've come across so far in Fedora and Ubuntu is the multicard reader's inability to read xD cards (Linpus added a couple of non-standard Linux kernel modules to do this). I just use my USB card reader.

 

Quite happy with my 8 GB linux One. Only the batterylife is rather... low.

 

I've had my AOA-110 (512mb ram, 8gig SSD, Linux, blue) since Aug 11th and I'm loving it. Another guy at work here got a Eee 900 (the Celeron one) a week before I got my AA1, so I've had a chance to have them side-by-side and I feel I made the best purchase for me. Before I bought it I did waver between the Asus and Aspire. I was actually leaning toward the Asus Atom-based unit until I had confirmation that the Aspire was not going to be using a Wifi card that only worked with ndiswrapper (ie Windows drivers had to be used and certain extended functionality would not be accessible).

I own another Acer laptop with their glossy screen, so I was prepared to deal with it. I will say it isn't very good out in daylight, but other than that it's pretty decent. I do prefer the Aspire keyboard over the Asus 900 and 701. About the only complaint I really have now is the finish, as it picks up and shows fingerprints like mad. Do note that I'm not using the Linpus OS that came with it now, but I did try it for a time. I liked it, but it felt too... limiting(?) for me (I use Linux daily). At this time I'm using Fedora 8. I'm just happy not to have paid the "Windows tax" and been able to support a company that did put Linux on their offering.

 

Absolutely. Like a few others, I had the chance to try out the AAO versus a few other netbooks at MicroCenter, and the AAO quite easily won out over the rest of them in terms of how it handled. Aside from low battery life, it's everything I could have expected out of such a machine, and travels in my backpack with me to work daily.

 

Hi

I bought the AA1 primarely to control my telescope and grab the pics for my rebel XT when doing astronomy. Since then, I have used it for web surfing, office work, image processing, etc..

For 350 $ this machine in pretty good ! Everything I have tried on it is usable (except 3D games). The screen is very nice (had an MSI wind and exchanged it for the AA1, I love glossy screens). The WiFi card has very good range, the hard disk is not a slouch. For 350 $ I was expecting a lot less.

Long live the AA1 !

 

I had a hell of a struggle deciding between Aspire One and EEEPC.

I'm sorry to disappoint you all but I ended up going with the EEEPC 901.

i bought it as I spend a lot of time sitting down at the computer and it was wrecking my back and kidneys. The little 901 sits nicely on my tummy and I'm lying down and typing this message with great ease.

But I'd agree that Aspire One has the best value for money compared to any netbook out there.

Thanks to all for your input.

 

its a good little netboook but not reliable



will not buy one nor recommend it purely on reliablility


you have been warned

 

I'm beginning to agree. This 3 weeks of running, then doing the black screen seems to be far too common. I don't consider a machine that requires a warranty voiding operation, after only 2-3 weeks of light use, to be too good.

When it happened to me, I didn't even try, I just returned it. I'd already been regretting the fact that I'd gotten the SSD version. At first, I planned to wait for the 6 cell. However, reading what the few people who have been able to get them have been saying, it seems as if the quality on those isn't all that great either--different issues, such as sloppy construction of the trackpad, etc. I'm beginning to think that the low price, attractive as it is, is simply because it's really not as good.

They're only on the second generation, apparently, but that frequent black screen issue as well as a few other things are making me seriously reconsider if I will buy another.

 

You feel you're able to comment about its reliability, while in the same breath admitting you never actually owned it... classy.

I've never had my A1 (8GB, original bios) blackscreen on me. Anyway the problem isn't reliability or hardware, its a known bios issue ... preventable and fixable.

 

I've had mine for a month, I've never changed anything on it. I've never had the black screen or anything like that. It does what I bougbht it to do, that's to take on my motorbike trips and be able to use internet and emails. It does that just fine. Mine is the linux 8gb ssd version, I bought this one as it had no hard drive to mess up while on the bike.

Only you can decide if it's for you.

 

Er.. I think I'll be happy with my One once I can get 3G and Bluetooth working (without 'hacks'), but I'm rather enjoying experimenting with different Linux distros at the moment - it's good to learn!