New member...new Aspire1

Well, after long debates on which netbook I should get, I was finally sold on the AA1 thanks to it's keyboard mainly and it's gorgeous screen second. I got the Saphire Blue 6-cell/1GB/160gb model and am LOVING it! The first thing I did when I got it was upgrade the RAM to 1.5GB and it was a very simple job to do. Not as easy as it could have been if they had just added a hatch in the bottom of the case, but not too difficult either...just a pain in the butt. I added a micro bluetooth module so I could use my BT mouse and connect to my phone and all is great. I can't believe how fast this little machine is and how well it does everything I ask of it...even games! I dropped my copies of Quake3, Dungeon Siege, Diablo2, Unreal Tournament into it... all games that reviews of netbooks said could barely be run if at all and I gotta tell you, I am impressed! Every one of the games I mentioned play liquid smooth! Even HD movies play smooth as silk with no stutter or slowdown. My main work lappy (dell D830) with it's 2.3ghz core duo, 4GB RAM, 512MB video and 7200rpm hdd can't play video as smoothly as this little beast does. I get all kinds of stutter and slow down/speedup on my big lappy but this little AA1 is like butter!

I just setup a friend of mine with a new Asus Eee box (just like the AA1, hardware wise, but in desktop form for an external monitor) and the thing is a dog. Even with it's custom version of simplified (VERY simplified) linux there is lots of delay switching tabs and opening software. My AA1 is a speed demon in comparison.

My main regret in getting the AA1 was the 1.5GB RAM limitation but I honestly don't feel robbed of power like I thought I would before I actually got it. The glossy screen just POPS with color and even from a distance is possibly the prettiest screen I've ever seen on a PC. The resolution is perfect for it's size and web pages aren't as cramped looking as I feared they would be on such a small screen although I do hit the F11 key when browsing to maximize my viewable area.

If anyone happens to read this post and is debating whether to get a netbook in general or the AA1 in particular, I can't say enough good things about it. I purchased mine as an alternative to lugging my monster lappy to and from work on my 80 miles of daily commute on my motorcycle. I see the AA1 becoming my main PC already after only a few days of ownership. I LOVE it!!

 

I'm glad you like it. I have the same version but in white.

I think most of us on this forum are pleased with this little netbook. It's not a powerhouse but you don't always need that if you choose your apps carefully with the resources you have in mind. The stock 1G RAM hasn't been an isssue with me yet.

I dumped the McAfee package rather quickly as (a) it's only a short term trial and (b) it nuked my connectivity a couple times when refusing to cooperate with some other things I installed. Windoze firewall is OK for me along with the hardware firewall in most routers. I have used AVG Free for antivirus for years and don't see much wrong with it.

Likewise I dumped the MS Office 07 trialware in favor of OpenOffice.org 3, which is easier for an old dog like me to use because the control menu items are where they have always been and right where they belong. Plus it's free.

You'll discover that several AAO owners have had various BIOS related problems, myself included. Look up "Dead Aspire One" or "black screen" here and you'll see info about one of the more common problems and how to fix it. I hopefully view the BIOS on these little computers as a sort of work in progress, and will flash up when it looks like some of those problems have been solved.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

Cool. It seems we think alike. I dumped the McAfee right out of the box as well and installed AVG as it's the only one I swear by. McAfee is a hog and a machine killer. I also installed OO3 to be used instead of MS Office. I'm hoping I never get the BIOS issues you mentioned. It sucks that support from Acer is so poor. Hard to imagine that a company that wants to be the world's largest manufacturer of netbooks thinks they can do it without excellent customer support. I suppose they will find out the hard way. In teh mean time, I will thoroughly enjoy this AA1 until it dies on me. I was able to get my employer to buy it for me so I really have little to lose. If I get another one I will try the one from Samsung (I think that's the newest one) but that depends on how well it does and what the users of them think of them.

 

Lord, McAfee is such a crappy package... Thank God for the McAfee product removal software, when I removed it from another AA1 manually, it crapped out the complete system and it had to be restored to factory state.

Anyway, disable hibernation right away, replace the Security Suite with something actually useful, update the BIOS and WiFi drivers, and all is set for a great AA1 experience.

 

What sort of issues do you have with hibernation? I almost always lose the USB hard drive, sometimes the printer, and once in a while the whole external USB hub.

 

I got the same One, in Sapphire Blue, last Tuesday. This little gem (pun intended) will be used to keep me connected to the internet when I travel. (I have an iMac at home.) I have no use for Office away from home, so I uninstalled it. If for some reason I need to access a document, Works can handle it. I also got rid of MSN - don't chat online. To fill all that space I freed up, I've downloaded a bunch of iTunes podcasts to watch during flights. AVG is downloaded but not installed yet.

I've never owned anything with a trackpad before, so there are still a few things to figure out, like how to cut/copy and paste.

Oh, I also got an LG Slim DVD-RW. I have a few games to install.


Donna

 

I have the 160 GB sapphire, I have not updated the wifi or turned off hibernation and I have not experienced any issues yet. Is this something that will occur over time ?

 

I just purchased the Saphire Blue one and I want to get a mouse that is same color.

I only found one so far it is the logitech V470, its blue and looks like same color as the acer.

 

I just received my AA1 today (XP 160 Gig, 6 cell, 1Gig RAM, white) and am about 3 hours into it. Frankly, I'm stunned at how good it is. I have had no problems at all with noisy fans, or connecting to my home network, or getting online at Starbucks (where most of my serious work gets done). Knock on wood here. At this point, I would like to say WOW, THANK YOU ACER!!! Of course, I am also very grateful to the members of this forum without which I wouldn't have been able to obtain critical pieces of information which helped me in making my decision to buy this machine. I can now say that I fully understand all the excitement (this is my first paragraph typed on the AA1 and this keyboard is dynamite dude).

For Donna, who said that she had never worked with a touchpad before, I would recommend going to Control Panel/Printers and Other Hardware/Mouse/Device Settings/Settings. Time here would be well spent.

At any rate I have been dreaming of a machine like this for many moons and *finally,* IT'S HERE. Thanks all!

 

I just bought an AAO day before Thanksgiving at Walmart. Got the 3 cell 160 gig HD for $348. This thing is awesome. People just don't realize this thing would be worth a $1000+ a year ago. What a deal. It is a very solid laptop. Quality is top notch. Fan makes no noise no matter how long I use it. But it could be that the 160 gigs have a later BIOS installed. That could make a difference in the fan noise. The LCD is beautiful. I hid the taskbar and when in an application like IE I do the pinch or spread on the touchpad with two fingers to zoom....then ctrl+0 (zer0) to put the zoom back to default. I installed MS Office 2007, MSN messenger that lets you do SMS to cell phones, and am about to try to install some games like Dungeon Siege 1 and 2. The keyboard is fine. A bit small but much better than the play keyboards found on the ASUS EEE netbooks. The touchpad works perfectly and I have no problems with the button placement and usually I just double click on the touchpad anyway. I just can't say enough at this laptop. I love it so much it makes me want to buy two before they go up in price or they quit making them. I know they are coming out with a 10" model next year but I like the 8.9". The miniature feel and look of this laptop is what draws you to it. Anything on it that would be larger would lose that look and feel. I bought the white model and highly recommend that color. Looks very sharp and the outside is a glossy pearl white, which looks very expensive. I also bought a case logic dvd player neoprene slip cover at walmart for $9.95 in black and it fits perfectly! The only thing I did to it was update the driver to the wireless card by letting it look on the internet for its own update and it found and installed it from device manager. I did that because I saw the connection drop only one time. Since the update it has not dropped again.

If you are in doubt about anything before purchasing this laptop, just go buy it. You won't be disappointed. I can now lie in bed and sit this on my lap/stomach and surf away.

Satisfied Acer Aspire One owner

 

Although I have not seen the other colors, I agree about the white model. It looks quite refined. Thanks for the tip on the zooming with the touchpad, I wasn't aware of that one.

 

Hello everone.

I am a new AAO user, Just got it on black friday, so far for the most part I am very impressed. I just accepted a new job that will require a great deal of travel, and I did not want to lug my Acer 5420 around with me.
If I had read some of the posts here before hand I might have not gone with the AAO. I hope that since I have the new one with the 160gb drive that I hope some of the Bios and others issues have been resolved. So far I love the size and clarity on the screen, I have not used any other netbook keypad so not sure how they feel but mine is great for it's size and that seems to be a commen mention on this netbook.
So far it has connected to my WIFI with no drops. After removing all the trialware and other crap from the little guy, and running IOBIT System care on it, it is running very snappy. I to removed the trial anti-Virus and went with AVG.
It plays my netflix streaming movies without a hitch. My only real complaint is the very poor sound. This seems to be a pattern with ACER as my 5420 has poor sound as well. but when you cell phone has better sounding speakers then you netbook, then that is a crappy speaker set.
So I will continue to check to forums and most likely will be doing the 1.5gb Memory upgrade soon.

 

Haven't had trouble with the Atheros wireless card, but just tried to update by letting the card search for update (through Device Manager) and it found nothing. Could you post your current driver version? And, does anyone know what is the latest unhacked version?

Mine is:
Atheros
5/20/08
Version 7.6.0.224

 

I just got mine and Did the same AVG for Mcafeee and Open Office for the trial of office. OO3 is just as good as office in my opinion and your right that everytime MS Office comes out with a new version, you not only have to pay, you have to relearn the thing because they keep moving stuff around. I did have a slight problem with mine, I was getting screen flicker during HD access when I had apps open full I fixed that by going into the graphices properties and dialing down the brightness to -25. Looks fine now... I flashed to Bios 7 before knowing the flicker was not an issue that was bios dependent, have'nt had a problem yet...

 

If you have not tried the Softmaker Office suite (the 2006 version is free at the Web site) you're in for a treat. Seems better than great, betters that Open Office and the other alternatives.

Check here http://www.softmakeroffice.com/

 

Hello I am robotmaker, an I am an AAO addict
It started when I bought a white 120 gb. I loaded up mac on it and obsessively played half life 2 on it. Now I can't leave it alone at all.
Thank you for your time and inviting me into your Aspire Anonymous group