Acer Aspire One (XP Home, White)

Pros: Small size, Beautiful screen, Two expansion slots, Sturdy Construction

Cons: Of course computing power, Availabilty of extended-life batteries

Summary: I have just purchased the little Aspire ONE. I looked at quite a few mini notebooks before I made my purchase and I can easily say this one was the best I had seen. There is one thing to note, I purchased the XP home version, not the Linux version.

There are quite a few surpises:
1. 120GB Hard Drive
2. 1 GB RAM
3. 2 Expansion slots
4. 3 USB's

I wanted a machine to travel with me that had the power to run MS Office applications plus maybe a little bit of entertainment. The little Acer can do all of that and more. I have MS Office Small business, Visio and Project 2007 installed on my machine and they run very well. That was a major surprise.

I would not upgrade to IE 7, though. Even with my VAIO, I had issuses moving from IE 6 to 7. Other than that, this machine is quite excellent and I am going to buy another for my Girlfriend when she begins her MBA. The size of the machine, combined with its ability to run MS Office 2007 applications makes this a perfect school laptop.

One hint:

I would purchase a small slimline external DVD Drive. I purchased the I/O Magic and discovered it works flawlessly with the machine. Plus, you can watch movies with very little stuttering.

I ended up having to purchase a Portable DVD case because there is not a case that can hold the machine securily. A bag from Plilips worked great for me.

This is a solid buy.

Updated on Oct 25, 2008

I am not sure if anyone has had this happen but a friend of mine and I both had our Aspire Ones Fail to Post. I was Thankful that Microcenter, where I purchased the machines, exchanged them for me. Since then, I have not had any issues. I still feel this is the best value in netbooks out there.

Updated on Nov 27, 2008

I have now had this machine for another month, and the new one has had no issues. I am very happy with this little laptop.