New computer on the block

It happened in a shop near me. What I wanted to buy was an external USB disk, but while strolling through the electronics aisle, I picked up a box. In it was a thing of beauty, so beautiful in fact that I could not put the package down. It was 299 Euro. Only two-hundred and ninety-nine Euro for such an amazing piece of equipment. The thing I am talking about, of course, is the Acer Aspire One.

The box I held contained the Linux version of the Aspire. Which is just the one I wanted. There are enough websites where you can check the specs of this baby, so I won’t repeat them here.

I just wanted to share my impressions of this nifty little computer.And as far as impressions go, I must say that I am indeed quite impressed.

What I like about the Aspire One :

• It’s very small and light so it’s easy to carry in my backpack.
• It boots in about 14 secs. That’s fast.
• It has an Atom CPU, which is all the hype right now.
• The little mouse pad works very well.
• Same goes for the keyboard.
• The GUI works for 99% like Windows. Which is important since I’m used to that.
• It’s pretty fast for such a modest cpu.
• With some hacking you can install extra software, tweaking it to your heart’s desire.
• The screen is very good quality.
• The (W)LAN connectivity works without a hitch. ( note : WLAN did not work with my mom’s Dlink router. )
• You can write blog posts while watching tv, which is what I’m doing right now.
• You can impress other people by being the first to actually own one of these cool gizmos.

The moneymoon is still going on with this machine. I would recommend it to everyone. If you wonder what you are going to do with it, just buy one, and wonder no more.

Use it as :

• an extra surfing pc around the house
• a companion to a digital camera to unload pictures and do some basic processing.
• a computer for the kids
• a portable movie player
• a cool piece of kit to look at

It’s been a while since I have been so enthusiastic about a computer. These new netbooks are pretty revolutionary in that they use commodity hardware to provide a basic and low-cost computing experience. But at the same time, they are pretty powerful little computers. You can hook up an external mouse, keyboard and screen, so it can be used as a basic desktop pc as well.

I leave you with a picture ripped shamelessly off Flickr :