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With the basic Intel Atom/1GB RAM/XP setup, you'll get a similar experience to using a Netbook such as the HP Mini 1000 or Lenovo S10, but there are a handful of trade-offs for the AOD150's price. While the AOD150's keyboard is large enough for comfortable typing, the tiny touch pad and mouse buttons (on a flimsy rocker bar) are painful to use, and the extended six-cell battery runs for up to 6 hours, but makes the whole package relatively heavy. Note that our test unit had a slightly beefed-up battery (5800mAH versus 4400mAH) compared with what it will finally ship with, and we'll retest with the official six-cell battery when we get our hands on one. Netbooks were originally intended as cheap, no-frills travel machines, and the new Aspire One fits that bill well, but there are also plenty of slightly more expensive options that add polish. The new Acer Aspire One AOD150 is available in blue, white, red, and black. Our review unit was "sapphire blue," with a glossy lid and a matte, slightly textured finish on the keyboard tray. While the new Acer Aspire One has a footprint similar to other 10-inch Netbooks, such as the MSI Wind, it's significantly thicker than the slim HP Mini 1000, and also heavier, thanks to the bulky battery. The first Acer Aspire One we looked at was a 9-inch Linux model, and while the AOD150 model has a larger chassis and screen, the keyboard is virtually identical. Despite not having as comfortable a keyboard as the Samsung NC10 or HP Mini, we did appreciate the inclusion of dedicated page-up and page-down keys. The touch pad is one of the few giveaways that this is a budget Netbook. It's tiny and square, with a very small rocker bar below it, instead of traditional left and right mouse buttons. Getting it to properly register a click is a pain: you need to press really hard, as the contact seems to be deeply embedded in the chassis. The 10.2-inch, wide-screen, LCD display offers a 1,024x600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for Netbooks. It's certainly readable, but most documents and Web pages will require some scrolling. Bright and clear, the new bigger display is the main selling points of Acer's updated Aspire One.
DDespite owning a huge chunk of the growing Netbook market, the popular Acer Aspire One has been saddled with a 9-inch screen, rather than the bigger 10-inch type we prefer. At long last, Acer now has a 10-inch model, the Aspire One AOD150. Even better, it's keeping the starting price at $349, which is about $50-$100 cheaper than similarly configured systems from other PC makers. The Aspire One series has been neither the best nor the worst Netbook out there, and Acer's market share to date has largely been based 
on its lower retail-price strategy.
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Cons: Has an 8.4-pound weight, which is somewhat heavier than some similarly priced notebooks.For example, the HP Compaq Mobile Thin Client 2533t, at around $785, has only a 3.1-pound weight.Also, this notebook has a modest 1.9 GHz CPU speed, which is slower than some similarly priced notebooks.For example, the Dell Vostro 1710, a 7.1-pound notebook at around $950, has a 2.5 GHz CPU speed.The fair battery performance of this notebook means it has to be recharged more often than other notebooks in its class. Suitability: A mainstream notebook, suited for general mobile computing.If you have a wireless network at home, wirelessly browse the Web from any room in your house with this Wi-Fi enabled notebook.Comes with a DVD writer, allowing you to convert home movies from your digital videocamera onto DVDs.An anti-theft security tether can be fastened into the built-in lock slot. Value: Given its relatively inexpensive price, this notebook has great features for the money. Suggestions: (1) Given this device's Wi-Fi capability, you may want to get a wireless access point for your home, so that you can browse the Internet more conveniently from any room.(2) To get the most out of this laptop's Bluetooth capability, you could have a Bluetooth-enabled headset, PDA or other device, and be able to link it wirelessly to your computer within a range of 20-or-so feet inside the same room. 
The Acer Aspire 7530-5660 is an 8.4-pound, consumer level notebook computer.Compared to other general-purpose notebooks on the market, it is relatively inexpensive at around $885.The 17 inch widescreen has a native resolution of 1440 x 900, which is better than most laptops.Built around the AMD Athlon X2 chip.This unit comes with a 250GB hard disk and 3 GB of memor
y.
Pros: Has an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS graphics chip, which is considerably better performing than some similarly priced notebooks.The built in Bluetooth connectivity will let you pair headphones or sync your mobile contacts.Includes an HDMI port so you can easily output the notebook's audio and video to a compatible TV or monitor.This is one of the few laptops featuring a superior sound system, even including an integrated sub-woofer.The EPA has classified this notebook as Energy Star compliant because it has built-in power management features.
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Acer has always been a global powerhouse, but the company has had a relatively anemic presence in the United States. Now that it has merged with Gateway (the two brands are still being treated as separate),
Our review model was the more expensive of Acer's two available configurations. At $2,499, the Acer Aspire 8920-6671 is pricey choice for a nongaming machine. The lower-end version, the visually identical Aspire 8920-6048, trades the Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU for a T5550, goes from 320GB of hard drive space to 250GB, drops from 4GB of RAM to 3GB (which is the maximum amount 32-bit Vista can address anyway), and features an Nvidia GeForce 9500M video card instead of a slightly faster GeForce 9650M. Important differences to be sure, but the cheaper version is available from retail stores for $1,299--less than half the suggested price of the more expensive version, and a much better overall deal. The Acer Aspire 8920 is a boat of a laptop, and its 16:9 display makes for a chassis that is wider but shorter than a typical 17-inch model that features a 16:10 screen. To fit the new panel, the Acer Aspire 8920 is about 1.5-inches wider overall than a 17-inch Gateway P-172. Even though both of these laptops are equally deep (11.9 inches), the Acer has a hinge that pivots the entire lid back, making it about 0.75-inch shorter when you've got the screen open at a 90-degree angle.
Acer refers to
the 8920 as part of the company's Gemstone Blue series, which means it has a speckled automotive-style blue/black lid, with a black and silver interior. The large chassis means there's plenty of room on the keyboard tray for a full keyboard, a large touch pad with a separate scroll zone, a sizable wrist rest, and a large speaker grille area above the keyboard.
The usual array of touch-sensitive media controls commonly found on multimedia laptops have been moved from their normal spot above the keyboard to a panel on the left side of the keyboard tray. Acer calls this the CineDash media console, but it's really just the same capacitive touch controls found on other laptops, arranged in roughly the shape of a handheld remote control. It's a clever idea, very eye-catching, and once you get used to it, works fairly well, with a volume slider, transport controls, and an iPod-like directional control for scrolling through menus. Our main complaint about it is there doesn't seem to be a way to access the pop-up menus while a Blu-ray movie is playing. Acer's proprietary media playing software, called Acer Arcade Deluxe, uses its own generic pop-up menus, but it's a clunky compromise. Plus, we always encourage PC makers to stop spending so much time and effort duplicating Windows Media Center (we're talking to you, Hewlett-Packard's QuickPlay), since proprietary media applications usually fail to exceed or even meet Media Center's mediocre standards.
The 18.4-inch wide-screen LCD display is the real star here. The native resolution of our 18-inch screen was 1,920x1,080 (you know, like Blu-ray), while a high-end 17-inch laptop is usually 1,920x1,200. That means Blu-ray or other HD content will fit the screen better. Acer claims this display has twice the color range than normal laptop screens--we're not sure about that, but in playing HD content, the picture was certainly clear, bright, and vivid, and the screen had excellent off-axis viewing--which is important unless you plan on watching all your movies alone (how sad).
We also liked the 5.1 speaker system, with two speakers above the keyboard, and two more, plus a subwoofer, on the front edge of the system. Technically, they can pump out surround sound, but it's not the same as actually having speakers behind and to the sides. There was, however, a better-than-average stereo separation and decent bass for a laptop (but it still won't get your dance tracks bumping).