We got our hands on one of these beauties yesterday and we were mightily impressed by the spec, but not so much the price. Acer has the usual list of netbook specs on the Aspire One A0751:
- 8 hour battery life (with 6-cell battery)
- Intel Atom chip Z520 (1.33Ghz)
- 160GB hard drive
- Bluetooth, webcam
- 1GB memory
- Windows XP
- Dolby 5.1 surround sound inputs.
However, with this netbook, Acer have slightly diverted from the usual spec. For instance, the keyboard is 100% full-size; we can't stop banging on about this - if you've got big gangly fingers and ever used an older Eee PC before, you'll know what we mean. Is this the end of cramped typing? That's celebration enough, in our books.
The second unusual feature is the unit's size. It's certainly pushing the boundaries of the usual 'netbook' definition. Most people will agree that a netbook is only feasible to about 10.2" in size. That's been the industry definition for a while. Obviously, Acer had a decision to make on this: functionality (keyboard, screen resolution) versus weight and portability. They took the former.
At 11.6", Acer has the right idea with the Aspire One AO751. The extra size doesn't add much weight at all. It's only 1.35kg and that's with the 6-cell battery on board. Impressive. Also, because the screen is larger, the resolution is much, much better. There's also the 1" thickness of the unit - making it ultra thin for a netbook.
Boasting a 1366 x 768 HD display, Acer have gone with CrystalBrite LED backlit screen. This means, the whole XP desktop works nicely on screen and icons aren't tiny.
In addition to the size and screen, Acer has also introduced a multi-gesture touchpad, ala the iPhone. You can now resize and expand your pics with a couple of finger clicks on your netbook now.
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Sapphire blue, but you can also pick from Ruby red, Seashell white, and Diamond black
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There's a range of cuddly colours: Ruby red, Seashell white, Diamond black and Sapphire Blue. We're pretty sure we get the Acer marketing speak on this one....they're all supposed to sound like very expensive rocks. And as for the price: at around $800 - $900 (depending on the battery you pick), we're still unsure whether this counts as a netbook.
Regardless, we still like what we see with this unit. And considering the top quality of Acer's last netbook, we're confident of this being a big winner.