Netbooks—small and light-duty computers that fill a gap somewhere between smartphones and laptops—are capturing a growing market share because of their compact size and light weight. When a friend asked me to help set up an Acer Aspire One D150, I was anxious to see what it could do.
While it didn’t make me want to immediately list my laptop on eBay, I can see the benefits for some travelers.
Practical Travel Gear columnist Tim Leffel recently decided not to give up his beloved laptop, either, in this review. I wanted to delve a little deeper into the netbook phenomenon and point out some strengths and weaknesses.
First, I really like the size of the Acer D150, which has a 10.1″ screen and is a featherweight at just under three pounds with the largest battery. The size is perfect for working on an airplane, even scrunched up in coach. American and other airlines are rolling out in-flight wi-fi, which makes it even easier to keep in touch or stay entertained in the air.
The D150 is well-designed with a colorful case. It runs a familiar operating system, Windows XP.
The screen is bright and the resolution is decent at 1024×600. I prefer a higher resolution in a notebook, but the Acer screen isn’t bad. Turning on Cleartype makes text more readable. It was not turned on by default.
The company claims a 6.5 hour battery life, which looks about right given the time I spent working with it. This netbook includes a 160gb hard drive.
The D150 comes with 1gb of memory and is powered by an Intel Atom processor N270. It’s a bit sluggish compared to larger laptops with more-powerful processors, but it’s not bad for web browsing, e-mail, word processing and games that are not graphics-intensive. Just don’t try video editing or anything along those lines.
It also includes a built-in microphone and webcam.
The list price is $329.99, which is very close to the cost of lower-end notebooks.
Those are the good points. But there are a few disadvantages.
What the D150 and other netbooks lack is a CD or DVD drive. That makes it difficult to install new programs or watch a DVD movie.
You could use an external USB disc drive for occasionally loading programs, but that adds to the cost. And it kind of kind of defeats the purpose of a small netbook to use an external drive to watch a movie on DVD.
Netbooks are also tailored for wireless or wired high-speed connections. If you’re still stuck somewhere without broadband, you’ll need an external USB modem to use dial-up.
The keyboard is a bit cramped. The 10.1″ screen seems just a tad small for serious web browsing with the screen resolution. Still usable, but not ideal.
For some inexplicable reason during the setup, Internet Explorer crashed. We’ll probably never know why, but that was a little disconcerting. After going through the setup, IE ran fine.
The Acer Aspire One D150 may be ideal for some travelers. But I’m still partial to my Dell XPS M1210 with its faster processor, larger screen, better graphics and built-in disc drive.
Maybe one day a netbook will make it into my travel bag. But not today.
Get the Acer Aspire One at Amazon.
#1 by Sonuce - May 9th, 2011 at 07:36
The lack of a dvd drive is a big problem. I use my netbook whilst in transit and when there is no wifi i watch a DVD. Not on this though!
#2 by Justin - June 12th, 2011 at 10:17
Don’t get me wrong, I won’t let go of my laptop because it has all my files and important programs but as I’ve recently been traveling for business, it’s a great pain having to carry around such a heavy device. Thanks for this review. Although without a dvd drive, this device might look useful to me.
#3 by sean - June 21st, 2011 at 16:59
The biggest advantage I see is the weight. I hate carrying around my wife’s laptop when we travel. However, I am shocked that it lacks a CD or DVD drive. And for the price I just can’t get past this point. The laptop will have to stay.
#4 by Jean - July 28th, 2011 at 01:21
This was my travel and out and about computer for years. When it first came out, people would come up to me and ask me about it. It was a great conversation starter at the Panera where I used to study,
Battery life was awesome, I think I got 7+ hours with the brightness turned down. The screen took some getting used to, but was manageable. The touch pad was hit and miss. I turned off the advanced scrolling features eventually. The keyboard was ok for anyone with small fingers, but even people with larger fingers could adapt.
The light weight made it easy to carry. It was my constant companion in many an airport across the country.
#5 by Cameron - October 17th, 2011 at 17:09
For me the best solution is a powerful big(er) screen laptop for home use and customer meetings etc. and a netbook for travelling. Nothing beats the compact size, light weight and battery life of a netbook, when you travel by plane. Especially when cramped in a packed economy class intercontinental flight.
Long live my netbook (my second one already)
Very good review thank you John. I owned this model and was very happy until it dropped…
#6 by Lauren - November 6th, 2011 at 21:53
@cameron
I couldn’t agree with you more. The first year I was in college I brought a laptop to class a few times. It was more of a distraction than anything else. Certainly didn’t improve productivity… I found that it was more difficult to listen, and notice those around me. It made it more difficult to be spontaneous.
#7 by Rick - November 16th, 2011 at 11:27
Isn’t a CD or DVD drive absent in all netbooks? IMO the Acer D150 will do okay for students but if you are planning to use it for gaming or editing then stay away from it.