A fantastic choice for young students, it comes with Windows XP Home, a 160 GB hard drive, and a 6-cell battery for up to 5.5 hours of battery life!
It also features an integrated webcam for easy access to video chatting.
Other features include multi-format memory card reader, 1 GB of installed RAM (1.5 GB maximum), 54g Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g), multiple USB ports, and built-in email, web browsing, and digital media applications.
This is a brilliant all-round laptop, and come highly recommended on Amazon.
Actual Customer Review on Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop from Amazon.com
"Acer was probably the first company to offer this level of performance in a "netbook". With an Atom processor, 1gb of ram, a 160gb hard drive, a 6 cell battery and Windows XP home, it's a pretty credible unit if you don't mind a slightly small keyboard.
I already had a 17" Dell 9300, but after seeing the original eee realized I'd get much more use out of a laptop that was convenient to take along.
Goals were:
- Small as possible with a keyboard I'd be able to touch type on.
- Long battery life
- Be able to run my SBIG astronomy camera.
- Wireless Networking
- Decent performance for web, email, and running the camera.
I spent a couple months looking at what was available, and what was coming down the road. The eee 900 and 901 keyboards were just too small for me to be able to get used to. On line reviews brought my attention to the original aspire one. People were saying nice things about it's performance and build quality, and mentioned the keyboard was much easier to get used to than the eee, but complained of short battery life.
Then Acer announced this model would be coming soon.
I probably would have been OK with the linux version if it had the 6 cell battery. Linux is better than Windows for the internet, and I could probably have gotten software to run the camera. But windows XP meant the camera would run out of the box, and I wouldn't need to learn a new operating system. The hard drive seems much larger than I need, but it means I won't need to worry about running out of space.
Performance wise, it has more than enough power for my needs. It plays youtube and flash based videos better than my Dell over the wireless network connection in part because it gets a more reliable connection.
Five and a half hours seems like a realistic estimate of the battery life.
The keyboard is smaller than a normal one, but after a couple of hours I got to the point where my touch typing was reasonably accurate. The other compromise is the speakers - They're not going to fill a room with sound - but for one or two people in a typical environment, they're loud enough. I doubt there's room in the case for more substantial speakers.
Build quality is very good - certainly at least as nice as my Dell. The controls are intuitive, and overall I'm very impressed with how easy this netbook was to get used to.
And it is super portable. In round numbers, four of them stacked together would probably be about the size of a six pack of soda cans. Factor in the long battery life and you have a computer that's very convenient to bring almost anywhere."
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This laptop is perfect for the teen who needs to travel light, as well as those who need extra-long battery life.