Acer Aspire One D250 Review

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OS choice on new netbook

The Aspire One D250 is a new netbook computer from Acer that features dual operating systems - Windows 7 Starter and Android.

The Android OS makes the Aspire One D250 very interesting. Since Android, which was initially designed for use on mobile phones, is an open platform, Acer uses it for the netbook. The D250 starts up into Android and you then have the choice of switching to Windows 7.

In the test, Android started up very quickly. The applications provided on Android included two Web browsers - Minefield and Firefox - mail, chat and contact-management applications, photo gallery and a music player.

So, if you wanted just to browse the Web or check e-mail on the go, then you could use the fast Android OS. And since Android is an open platform, you could later download and install more Android-based applications.

Since the D250 is powered by an Intel Atom N280 running at 1.66GHz, the netbook is not for multitasking or graphic-extensive games.

During the test on Windows 7 Starter, the D250 worked fast enough for Web browsing, e-mails, multimedia applications and Microsoft Office 2007 applications, like Word.

Although the netbook is small - measuring 258.5 x 184 x 25.4mm - its keyboard is comfortable for typing and its multi-gesture touchpad works well, featuring circular-motion scrolling, pinch-action zooming and page flipping with fingers.

Another thing I liked about the D250 was its 10.1-inch monitor, with 1024 x 600 (WSVGA) pixel resolution. The Acer CrystalBrite LED-backlit TFT LCD is really bright and sharp for watching movies and pictures.

The D250 has everything that a netbook should have - 1GB of working memory, a 250GB hard drive, a LAN port and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections. It also has a webcam with 0.3-megapixel resolution.

Together with a six-cell battery pack, the netbook weighs 1.27kg, which makes it quite comfortable to carry around. The six-cell pack has very good battery life of about six hours in normal use, as measured by the Battery Eater Pro application.

The Aspire One D250, which is available in Sapphire Blue, Diamond Black, Burgundy red and Seashell White, retails for Bt14,900, excluding VAT. At this price, a slim external DVD writer worth Bt2,990 is part of the deal.

Key specifications: Acer Aspire One D250

Processor: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 512KB L2 cache, 667MHz FSB)

OS: Android, Windows 7 Starter

Main chipset: Mobile Intel 82801GBM Chipset

RAM: 1024MB DDR2 (Maximum 1GB)

Hard drive: 250GB HDD

Display: 10.1" WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD (1024 x 600 pixels)

VGA: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950

Dimensions: 258.5 x 184 x 25.4mm

Weight: 1.27 kg

-- The Nation 2010-01-14

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Acer Aspire One D250