How Durable?

Hey,
I've been a mobile computer since my HP 100LX days, and I am getting ready to be doing an extended road trip in the next couple of months.

My old Panasonic Toughbook is dying a slow tragic death, and I am wanting something with a lot more battery life (the Toughbooks' battery is toast...) and more speed etc etc.

My question is this (and specifically to those of you who have had a lot of mobile gadgets) : Is this little gem well enough built to take day to day handling in a hotel room to hotel room environment?

I am not too rough on my equipment... my 100LX died after about 4 or 5 years, the top got snapped off... my 300LX got stolen, my Cassiopea is sitting right here with a weak battery (10 minutes...) my Toughbook is 4 years old (and weak batteried too) and my Visor developed a psychotic screen tic (I got it second hand to play games, and I think it had the twitch when I got it...)

So... having said all that... is this thing going to take being on planes, trains and automobiles pretty much non stop for 6 months, and let me be able to run the computer side of my business on the fly without too much risk of a hardware failure because I didn't baby it enough?

Thanks in advance to all you road warriors out there!

 

There's no true gauge to judge toughness.... among netbooks, the AAO is quite tough. As long as no rough handling is involved. It can cope very well in everyday activities. Get the HD version with XP and a 6cell battery (5hrs plus runtime), as the linux version is more for students and beginners. For a $300 notebook this thing is fine, but it's no toughbook..... The AAO performs way beyond it's $300 pricetag that's why some people actually expect too much from a $300 machine. When not too long ago, even PALM Pilots costs alot more, heheh.

 

Mine (SSD version) has fallen off a table onto a wooden floor without any problems at all, not even a scratch. I'd hate to think how badly it could have turned out if it was the HD version though.

 

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1989&p=16825#p16520

I think that indicates it's pretty tough

 

Took mine on a 3-week road trip. No problems. It travels in an old slim, hard-sided Samsonite attache case, with a couple of pieces of carpet padding to keep it from getting too jostled. No problems connecting to motel wireless, so I'd say the wifi radio is definitely better than that of my old Averatec 3250

 

I bought my Acer Aspire One on August 24 and up until I left for dinner on October 28, it worked wonderfully. However, when I attempted to turn the PC on again, it refused to do so and has not turned on since, stranding me away from home without a backup of the assignment I was working on and without a functioning computer to boot. Without going into nauseating detail about what happened next (I bought a Gateway laptop which was a total piece of junk, exchanging it after 4 days of fitful freezeups and occasional periods when it did work (sort of) for a Toshiba Satellite which has been an absolute jewel), I brought the little Aspire One in to Best Buy for warranty repair this morning.

I had thought the problem had something to do with the hard drive connection (it would start up but never engage), but the tech's initial checkout indicated a possible motherboard problem! He thought there was a fair chance the entire PC might just have to be replaced. In fairness, the tech has not processed any other problematic Aspire Ones, and we both agreed the motherboard issue was something that probably occurred during assembly and was not systematic of anything deeper or more troubling. I had also encouraged my older sister to go buy one because she liked its size and features.

I do have to tell you though, as a road warrior, I don't know if I would ever consider taking it along again as my sole PC. As a machine to use at the beach or under different circumstances, it might work out well (and it certainly handled Office 2003 and Quickbooks with nary a problem), but I'm not sure if I'd ever consider going to an assignment again (especially out of town) with only it available. The failure was so complete and unexpected that it makes me wonder if it will happen again, and THAT kind of doubt is terrible to dispel.

 

I bought mine last week (1gb Ram, 120gb harddrive, 3 cell battery, running Windows XP). I bring it with me to work everyday and it's been great. Last night my four year old knocked it off the table and onto the floor. I almost had a heart attack, but when I rebooted it, everything was fine. I'd say it's pretty durable.

 

Thanks for all the replies on this...

I've been having the dilemma of what to carry with me on my upcoming adventure, and now I am nearly certain that I will go with this machine... 160gb/6cell unit is available for $400 now, so that makes sense from a price point...

I'll add a usb cd/dvd for it, and a new good case... and hit the road running...

I debated about going the 3G broadband route, but I think I'll not start out that way, as I don't need internet every minute, just evenings (from the hotels... no biggie) besides not another $50/mo phone bill on top of the phone bill I already got...

 

An update.

I got my AAO in December, less than 2 weeks before I hit the road... so I didn't get all the stuff done I wanted to, but I did get it for $50 less than I originally planned on spending (yea!).

I got the 160gb/1gb/6cell version, with XP.

I have been very impressed so far. It travels nicely, it will definitely run for 6 hours on a charge while connecting via wireless... it will run all kinds of apps with no issues.

My normal day right now is running Streets and Trips (normally 2 panes running simultaneously), Google Earth, Open Office (again 2 panes of Calc running simultaneously), Windows Media Player (gotta listen to tunes while you work), Thunderbird, and a proprietary software program called photolog (that runs jpgs at 10 fps in 2 separate windows at the same time). all of this simultaneously... and it runs fine. Occasionally bogs just a little... but not bad at all.

For the first 2 or 3 days, until we got with the developer to find out the secret to making photolog run under Vista, my little AAO was the only computer we had that would run it... Pretty cool stuff...

I got a blue one, and the smearing thing on the shiny case is the only "ugh" I have about it. I got a frogskin for the keyboard,and am very happy with it. I also got a full size roll up keyboard to carry with me and a presenter trackball is coming, I'll let you know how that works out.

The coolest part is the number of people who have gone, "Whoa, cool!" when they see all the stuff that I am doing simultaneously on it...

Plus I am still doing my books for my other business on evenings and weekends, and occasionally even surfing the web...

But it's taken to travel quite well indeed... we're looking at GPS units to attach to it to make our job even easier, and then we'll have to buy a few more to put out with our crews.

Cheers!

 

To be fair, this could happen to ANY laptop. I had an HP monster of a laptop (compared to the wee AAO) and it would die without any indication anything was wrong. In the first 6 months of owning it, it was sent back to HP for work 4 times. And each time it came back, the same issue would occur.

Anytime you rely on just one laptop (or vehicle, cell phone or anything), it's you putting all your eggs into one basket. What you should have learned was to back up your work constantly. Either on a USB stick, memory card or external drive. Not to fore go using the AAO on the road. But I understand why you'd be gun shy since it happened with an Acer. You'd feel the same way if it was a Dell that crapped out on you. lol

Back up your work, folks. No exceptions!