Cheap Acer AOD250-1633 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - Up To 9 Hours Of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) I had some concerns about a netbook. To be sure, they're small and light, but my question was whether that also meant they were slow and functionally crippled. The Acer AOD250-1633 quickly overcame my skepticism. Despite the fact that this is a very small and light system, it is plenty fast and has a lot of good features. The keyboard isn't full-sized, but it's well-designed and even for a fast typist (which I am) it's easy to get used to and positive when you gain some experience with it. The screen is also small, but bright and easy to read. Some software does create an issue with it by not showing all of a window, so it might be a good idea to check to be sure your favorite programs have windows that can be resized, even the smaller "internal" ones used when you pick a menu item. Windows 7 was probably my happiest surprise. The Acer AOD250-1633 with Win 7 boots very quickly, and for users of XP it's not a major transition. To be sure, things like the Control Panel don't work exactly the same way, but it's not hard to figure out what the equivalent steps are. The Acer comes with the "Starter" version of Windows 7, which doesn't include personalization touches like your own wallpaper, but despite this it connected to my home network with WiFi security without a hitch and also shared files and printers with my other PCs (still on XP). If you don't have Windows 7 on all your home systems, pick "Work Network" when you set up because the default homenet option won't work with XP systems. Program compatibility is good as long as you get software that works with Vista; the Starter version won't run the XP compatibility mode stuff. Open source programs like OpenOffice install and run fine. The Works and Office Home and Students software that comes with the system aren't useful; the former is the anemic ad-sponsored version and the latter is a trial that will cost half the price of the netbook to convert. Microsoft's own Security Essentials isn't loaded (there's a McAfee trial) but I uninstalled all this stuff and loaded my own without difficulty. Since there's no CD/DVD drive you will need to download, use a memory stick, or copy via a home network to get software onto the device. In all, I'm very glad I got Acer AOD250-1633. It was easier to set up and more powerful than I'd expected. |
Post new comment