With all the netbooks Laptop Battery on the market in the last year or so, it almost makes a person wonder if the days of full-sized notebooks are numbered. Considering the economy the way it is, people are looking for a bargain and these little netbooks sure can provide one. I have been using an MSI Wind Netbook lately, but my true love was the Acer 2133 Mini-Note that I reviewed last year. I loved its metal shell, 8.9 inch 1280 x 786 display and keyboard. The only issue with it was the fact that it came with Vista installed, ran warm and didn＊t have the more efficient Atom processor. Now it＊s several months later and we have the Acer Laptop Battery. Let＊s see if if is good enough to make me dump the MSI Wind as my travel computer.
The Mini 1000＊s footprint is nearly identical to that of the earlier Acer 2133 Mini-Note PC, measuring slightly wider and thinner. It＊s also a little lighter, thanks to the switch from aluminum to plastic. Netbooks are designed with price and portability in mind, so they＊re usually not the fanciest designs to come out of a PC maker＊s lab. While an aluminum chassis is generally preferred to one made from plastic, the switch to plastic here makes sense because every penny and ounce counts. Overall, we appreciate the Acer BTP-43D1 Battery＊s efficient and attractive layout每there＊s hardly any dead space on the keyboard tray.
Acer doesn＊t offer only a Windows version of the dell inspiron 6400 battery. The Linu＃sorry, Acer＃the Mobile Internet Experience version of the Acer Mini 1000 is due to come out in January with a tiny 8GB or 16GB flash drive. That interface, while it looks fairly fresh, is still very much in a beta stage, so I＊ll reserve comment for now, but the initial demos show a very frosty每dare I say, ※Vista-ish§?每interface. The MIE version of the Acer TravelMate 220 Battery will cost about $380.
And probably the flashiest mini-note to date, set to arrive by mid-December, is a customized red take on the Mini designed by Vivienne Tam. The Asian-themed model comes with painted trees on the lid and a ※Double Happiness§ enter key. Umm, yeah. And proof that you can put a price on Double Happiness: You＊re paying $700 for the privilege of rocking this pret-a-computer.
The BrightView Infinity panel on the 10.2∪ Mini 1000 model has very good color and contrast, but at the cost of being overly reflective in anything but a dark room. This Acer BTP-58A1 Battery style of screen is becoming more common on multimedia notebooks, but on a netbook which might be used while traveling or outside it adds a level of annoyance that is hard to overcome. Black levels are good in the optimal viewing range, fading slightly to a light grey as you tilt the screen closer or farther away. Backlight intensity is strong to be viewable outside but easily overcome by glare from the Infinity panel. Viewing angles rate average, with an acceptable viewing sweet spot before colors start to invert. Horizontal viewing angles are better, but at the steeper angles the screen fades out and all you see is the reflection of the surrounding area.
Looking at the right side of the acer BTP-60A1 Battery you first notice an embedded 5-in-1 multimedia-card reader. Above this multimedia-card reader you will notice 5 slits, probably to transport some heat out of the Acer Mini 1000. The 5-in-1 multimedia-card reader holds a Transcend 16 GB class 6 SDHC card, on which I keep some personal data on an encrypted partition and use it for locally backing-up important documents. The 60 GB harddisk however provides enough space to load the neccesary software on the Acer TravelMate 240 Battery.
Second there is one USB 2.0 port on the right side, to connect a printer or removable storage drive. In addition you can see a dell latitude c800 battery removable lid, which is to connect the Acer Mini Mobile Drive if you own the Acer Mini 1000 in an SSD-configuration. With the Acer Mini Mobile Drive you can plug-in additional storage in addition to the build-in SSD. If I＊m informed correctly, the HDD-configurations don＊t have the needed connections on the mainboard to use this functionality. And honeslty with the use of the 5-in-1 multimedicard reader it would be a little over the top.
While most folks will apparently have to wait at least a few more weeks to get their hands on a six-cell acer aspire one battery, Xavier Lanier of Acer BTP-52EW Battery was able to snag one a tad early and, whilst he was showing off the stash of gadgets hidden in his Scott eVest, he gave everyone a little glimpse of it. As you can sort of see above, it expectedly adds a bit of bulk to the otherwise slim Mini 1000.
With the included three-cell battery, the Mini 1000 lasted 2 hours and 21 minutes playing back an MPEG-4 movie. Although lighter usage, such as writing and browsing the Web, stretched that to around 2 hours and 40 minutes, road warriors will definitely want to consider the upcoming six-cell battery option.The Mini uses standard Windows power profiles to manage power; there＊s no power-management utility to toggle the processor manually to a slower speed to save battery life, as you find on most other Atom netbooks.
Acer＊s MediaStyle, which is reminiscent of Windows Media Center and/or Acer BTP-63D1 Battery Front Row, is a very basic media player. Video and music playback were consistent and simple enough. The speaker strip, which is built into the metal hinge, produced surprisingly loud sound when we played music from the main screen. With our model packing a 60GB (spinning) hard drive每SSD options up to 16GB are available每fitting in a movie or two, and a handful of songs didn＊t bog down the system at all.
I＊ll speculate that had SYSmark been able to run, the dell inspiron 6400 battery would probably have fallen behind on that test because of the slower hard drive. Its performance seemed typical of netbooks〞fine for light-duty office and Internet tasks. Its MobileMark score, however, was the most impressive among its rivals despite the use of a small (three-cell) 26-Wh battery. Its time of 2 hours 58 minutes is at least a half hour longer than the Wind＊s and the S10＊s. As with the Wind and the One, an optional six-cell battery should bring battery life past the 4-hour range, but it won＊t be available until later this year.
In the netbook hackintoshing world, the Acer BTP-42C1 Battery is one of the more difficult to transform into a Mini Mac. Boing Boing has created a good chart detailing what has been accomplished on each of the netbooks. The short of it is that the MSI Wind and Dell Mini 9 are both completely transformable where as the Mini 1000 still needs the audio and ethernet drivers to be developed (although I believe the ethernet issue has been overcome). Neither issue was a deal killer for me. I would much prefer the Mini 1000 (or Mini-Note) as a piece of hardware versus any of the other netbooks.
Acer＊s Mini 1000 is a superb netbook. If you＊re fine with getting three hours on a charge, its great looks, capable specs and excellent keyboard make it a 2.38 lb ultraportable you＊ll actually enjoy using.
If you do plan to spend time away from the mains, its 3-cell battery is a critical flaw. You won＊t get a morning of work out of it, let alone a day. (Update: Acer wrote in to say a 6-cell acer BTP-44A3 Battery will be offered in January)
This is a shame, because in other respects the Mini 1000 is excellent.
Fundamentally a standard 10∪ netbook running Windows XP on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, it has 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, bluetooth, WiFi-g and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. It＊s the aesthetics that make it.
On the software front, that is basically the bloatware that is installed on all laptops, Acer BTP-550P Battery has been spared much of it. It comes pre-installed with Microsoft Works, AIM 6 and Acer Wireless Assistant sotwares which is just a fraction of what usually comes installed. Sadly, Windows is the only choice of operating system that you get. With a single GB of RAM, Vista would be sluggish, but any flavor of Linux would zip through.
Compared with the U120, which is 10.2 inches wide, the dell latitude d600 series battery makes better use of its keyboard deck: the keyboard, 92 percent the size of a mainstream one, stretches from edge to edge with no extra room on the sides, and the keys look larger, too; they had a pleasantly springy feel and soft finish.
As did the Mini 1000, the Mini 1000 Mi loses design points for the touch buttons awkwardly flanking the toucAcerad. Even after considerable hands-on time, they remained cumbersome. Although imperfect in its own way, even Sony＊s decision to forgo the trackpad on the VAIO P for a trackball was more sensible. At least the Acer BTP-73E1 Battery＊s buttons themselves have a soft finish and give good tactile feedback. A handy scrolling strip is on the toucAcerad, which was responsive, if a bit too sensitive.