I love my one.

Just got my one (linux & 8gb ssd) on Thursday from buy.com and I really like it. I am a Ph.D. student living in East Lansing, Michigan and I need to travel a a lot for research and conferences. So this notebook suits me pretty well. During the travel, I need sth that boot & work fast for casual internet stuffs like email and skype. But for my works, most of the software I used are windows based. So I installed xp (xp3esd stripped version) on the external hdd (I used maxtor onetouch 4 mini) and it works pretty well so far. (I tried to install from normal xp oem disk but it crashed twice but the installation was fine using xp3esd stripped disk)

For xp, it takes about 30 sec to boot from external hdd and it can handle some hardcore calculation program like sigmaplot that I normally use for my research (I haven't upgraded the ram yet, but will do eventually). I also installed office 2007 and word and excel were loaded in about 8sec (faster than my current 2-year-old compaq laptop with 2gb ram AMD dual core)
[attachment=0:1sr3dyue]desktop2.JPG[/attachment:1sr3dyue]

Currently, I do own an Eee 4G surf but man that cannot compare with aspire one. Here is my thought why I prefer one to eee.
1. Acer build quality is way better. It doesn't look as cheap as the Eee.
2. Believe it or not, I like the one's touchpad buttons. Eee's buttons are far more difficult to use especially when it sits on your lap, it has tendency to flip over thanks to the heavy display.
3. Fast processor.
4. The left sd slot

So in the end, I will give my Eee to my girlfriend and I will keep the One :lol:

Also, just installed 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein' on the one and it worked great

Thanks you guys in this board for the info, drivers and installing techniques .

My current desktop
[attachment=1:1sr3dyue]desktop.JPG[/attachment:1sr3dyue]

 

Hey, I hope your enjoying XP, and most of all hope you enjoy your notebook very much!
Can't wait to get mine it looks very elite!
If you don't miind could you tell me what major you are if its no big deal,
Thanks.

 

My major is 'Packaging' (weird huh?)

 

first guy ive found whose enjoying using xp on the 8gb ssd version, surely must be the samsung drive...

how much ram is in you A1?

 

I didn't install Xp in the SSD but in the external hdd (160 gb maxtor onetouch 4 mini) instead.
Here's the picture:
[attachment=0:2pzi7dqz]maxtor.jpg[/attachment:2pzi7dqz]
Photo from http://marcaplin.com/thailand/wp-conten ... maxtor.jpg


Now, I have 1.5 gb ram (just installed it recently).

 

Do you use the split usb lead?
How much of an impact does the drive have on battery life?
thx

 

Yes, it is a split usb cable. The battery lasts about 3 hrs on linpus linux and about 2 hrs on this harddrive using xp. I don't know that is because of harddrive cable, windows xp or combination of both. (I think split usb drains more battery)

 

split usbs are used for SATA drives which require more power, but then give better read/write times.

so yeh, the split usb will have more of an impact on battery life.

could just plug the A1 in, or get an adaptor for the external hdd, but then that would affect portability

 

I have the same external drive, the good news is that it will work if you only insert one plug (at the double end).
I also tried a single usb lead, it also works.

Seems like the One's usb ports supply more power than usual?

 

Lower battery life running XP surely has more to do with powering the hard drive than any inefficiency in XP per se. Adding more memory will also cut into the battery life.

Two practical questions:

1. When giving a powerpoint presentation on an external display/projector ... what kind of resolutions and color depths can you select? Is 32bit 1280x1024 output possible, and can you extend the desktop to an external monitor?

2. Wolfenstein, eh? How well does that work?

/Richard

PS. USB are rated to 5V, 500mA per socket. That's 2.5 watts. Most 2.5" hard drives can operate on that, most of the time. Some need a little more, which is why you need the split USB cable sometimes, but not always. Also, many notebooks have "weaker" USB power that dont provide the full 2.5W. There again its better to use connect to two ports to get a maximum output power closer to 5 watts, or use a externally powered USB hub, or a self-powered external hard drive case.

 

If you love your A1 running xP from external HD you will really love the new 6-cell xP A1. Battery life is just amazing (6 hours+), WiFi reception is pretty strong, and construction is pretty solid. Only complaint is weak built-in speakers, and the dark blue surface collects smear, grease and fingerprints easy.

 

you running linux on the onboard memory then? for when you go out?

im gonna get the 120gb hdd and whip xp on that.

 

Q1, I did not have a chance to try my one on the projector yet. But from right click>properties>settings, I can select a bunch of different resolutions, also I can select extend the desktop to external monitor.

Q2, Wolfenstein works great on one. But the loading time is kinda long....

Yeah, that's right. But my work/research forces me to use xp.

Also, already order 6 cell from cdw...will ship august 25

 

Split usbs are just as useful with SATA and PATA drives. SATA drives don't require more power. The problem is that some USB ports don't provide enough current for the drive to run, hence split cables to power it from 2 ports. Such a cable won't give you better read/write times.

 

i was comparing SATA to IDE. but yeh, youre right, i didnt make it very clear.

the 2 usbs doesnt mean it will double in transmission speed