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(NaturalNews) It's rare to discover a technology product that genuinely changes the way you get things done, but the Aspire One netbook from Acer accomplishes exactly that. It's a feature-packed "netbook" that can revolutionize the way you read websites, listen to audio books, read e-books, watch videos or teleconference with friends. It may seem odd to review a technology product on this website, but because of the ways in which this netbook can greatly enhance your ability to interact with electronic information (and a lot of the information you need to know is in electronic form these days), this review is important to our readers.
"Netbooks" are small, streamlined laptop computers running on the Intel Atom processor and featuring long battery life, reduced weight and smaller screens. Although they're typically configured with a relatively small amount of memory (1 GB) and hard drive space (160 GB), they still seem very responsive and nimble thanks to the Windows XP operating system (which is faster and less bloated than Windows Vista).
For this review, I purchased an Acer Aspire One D250, which comes with an external CD/DVD drive, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB internal hard drive. The default battery offers up to six hours of battery life, and astoundingly, the unit comes with a built-in webcam and microphone. It has a slightly-reduced-sized keyboard, a handy touch pad and a wireless mouse. Wi-Fi and Ethernet are built in, and the LED LCD screen is 10.1 inches with a resolution of 1024 by 600.
The limitations of laptop computersTo understand why this Acer netbook works so well, it helps to first acknowledge the problems with a typical laptop computer. Over the past few years, laptops have grown bigger, bulkier and more feature packed. On the down side, this has made them heavy and impractical, with sharply reduced battery life. My primary laptop, for example, sits in my carryon bag during airplane flights because it's too large to use in an airplane seat. But Acer's Aspire One netbook slides easily into the seat pocket in front of you, and it's very usable on a typical airplane tray table.
Another problem that's especially common among international travelers is the theft of laptop computers. If you walk out of an airport with a laptop computer case strapped to your shoulder, you might as well just paint a bright red target on your forehead that says, "Rob me!" Thieves are now trained to look for laptop bags because they know the contents of a typical bag can fetch anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a thousand bucks on the underground market.
But a netbook computer can be stuffed into a non-laptop bag. You can carry it in a large purse or a small book bag, disguising its identity. I sometimes carry it in an equipment bag that looks way too small to hold a computer. This way, I avoid being targeted by thieves looking to jack a high-end laptop. That's why netbooks are safer than notebooks when it comes to traveling.
Serious battery life... finally!On the issue of battery life, everybody already knows what I'm about to say: Traditional laptops suffer from disastrously poor battery life. This is due to primarily two factors: The power requirements for a large screen, and the juice-sapping drain from traditional CPUs. Netbooks, on the other hand, use the low-power Intel Atom processor, and their greatly reduced LED display screens are both smaller and more power efficient than typical TFT LCD screens used on most laptops.
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Sunday, November 01, 2009
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