The last time I wrote about my ASUS Eee
Over a month later I am happy to say I’m still infatuated with my 7” Eee. It has become part of my daily work environment and I use it a lot – in fact, I rarely carry home my primary work laptop anymore. The Eee typically works just fine for me in the evenings. But I was still curious about that Acer…
It turns out my friend Rich G had purchased that exact model of Aspire (linked above). He used it for a long business trip and then magnanimously offered to ship it out to me so that I might play around with it a bit before he needs it again. I instantly took him up on that offer and received it a couple of weeks ago.
While not dramatically bigger than my Eee, there is a noticeable difference:
(the Acer is on the right)
What the picture doesn’t really show is how much larger the keyboard really is. I freaking love it and find it way easier to use than the Eee’s much smaller keyboard. While I find the Eee very handy for utility functions, I can see myself actually working on a document on the Acer.
The picture also doesn’t show how much more visually appealing the Acer is over the Asus. Sure, looks don’t matter much, but the Acer is all sleek and shiny and makes the Eee look positively stodgy when they’re next to each other.
The Acer came with a 6 cell battery pack. The good news? I’ve seen over 5 hours usage on a charge. The bad news? This unit is definitely heavier than the Eee (which lasts for about 3 hours with a much smaller battery pack).
There’s also a noticeable difference between running at 800 x 480 (Eee) and 1024 x 600 resolutions. On my Eee I’m often in full screen mode. That’s not needed as much on the Acer. In fact, the only negative on the Acer’s video is that this has one of those super glossy LCDs which (to me) seems to give more glare than desired. It also shows fingerprints way too easily around the border.
The Eee has a 4GB SSD drive while the Acer has a 160GB laptop drive. Now there’s a dramatic difference! So far, with the way I use the Eee that small drive hasn’t been an issue at all. In fact, the lack of drive noise and almost complete lack of fan noise makes the Eee a lot quieter than the Acer. Granted, neither are all that noisy…
The factory install of XP Home was pretty messed up when I got this thing from Rich. I’ve never seen so many blue screens! One way to guarantee a BSOD was to try and use the built-in 1.3 MP web camera. BAM dead, every time. Maddening and, honestly, caused me to not use the machine as often as I might have.
However, when it wasn’t blowing up it ran noticeably faster than my Eee – no doubt due to the more modern Intel Atom processor. Both units have 1GB of RAM, but the Acer definitely runs Firefox 3 much better and with much smoother scrolling than my Eee. The higher resolution doesn’t hurt either.
Rich indicated he’d like to try Linux on this unit so I’ll be finishing the install Easy Peasy (formerly Ubuntu Eee) on it and shipping it back soon. Dead simple install with, so far, very few issues. I’m not sure I’m in love with the desktop model, but I’ll admit that it does work pretty well on the small screen.
Post-install it wanted to keep prompting me for admin creds and to install (again) on every reboot, but a quick search turned up a sticky in the support forums that got that fixed. Other than that, things seem to be working well.
Which do I prefer?
I love ‘em both – but for different purposes. I know, what a cop out, huh? 
My Eee, while not my first choice in models, turns out to be perfect for how I use it at work and I wouldn’t change a thing. I use it with all my assorted monitor and management web pages and carry it around with me as needed. It works great as a remote desktop client and generally just gets the job done.
Yeah, I do wish the keyboard was a bit bigger, but I’m OK with the trade-off towards size and portability.
The Acer, on the other hand, is now my top candidate for the next home machine. We’d like to get our daughter a laptop for next year (senior) and then college and I think the size and form-factor of the Acer would be perfect for her. Not to mention that long battery life. The keyboard fits her hands just fine too.
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February 4th, 2009 
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I actually have been thinking about getting a netbook…and sticking OSX in it
On the other hand…maybe Apple will come out with one some day soon? That’d rock…a unibody netbook…drool….
You two should try to OSX those things and see how it goes…that way you can go through the trouble and I can just grab wichever one works better
A quick google of “Mac netbook” returns some interesting finds… some not very “legit” and others speculative about the real deal.
As for me, I’ll keep XP on mine for now. I like Easy Peasy on Rich’s Acer, but I think XP is better suited for mine and how it is currently used.
Ya know, Apple would likely price an official Mac netbook way beyond what the *nix and XP models go for — and that would be a cryin’ shame.
Well, of course, you don’t have to choose between Easy Peasy and XP. They coexist happily together on the 160 GB drive. I am not sure about the Easy Peasy desktop yet, but it is growing on me.
Great point Jim. With 160MB drive there’s no reason not to multi-boot.
Not quite as easy with my little 4GB SSD drive
I think an apple netbook would probably go for around 650 bucks or so…that is, a bit higher than most netbooks, but not beyond the expensive-netbook and into the no-way-jose pricerange
And for 650 bucks I’d buy one…hell, I’d probably buy two lol!
Just saw a comment on twitter about how easy it was to take a Dell Mini 9 the “hackintosh” route… For $650 you could have two
Yes, but a mini9 is…way too small for my big paws
Something in the 10-12 range would work better for me