Baby Laptop – Netbook

A few days ago, I bought an Acer AspireOne. It’s one of those new Netbooks with the Intel Atom N450, running at 1.66GHz. It came with Windows 7 Started edition, 1Gb of RAM and a 140Gb HD. I only bought it for one specific reason and because of that, I’m sure that I’ll leave the OS alone. Although Windows 7 Starter seems pretty limited, it will do exactly what I need it to do.

The project that I bought it for will have the computer running, unattended, for months (and hopefully years) at a time. I’ve had it running since I pulled it out of the box (minus a few restarts because of software installs/uninstalls) and it definitely looks like it will do what I need it to do. There is very little heat generated, and I should be able to put it somewhere that will have very little airflow.

Even though I already use a full-size laptop, I found myself wanting to “move around” a little more with this little thing. It’s about half the size of my main computer (literally) and probably weighs one-third as much. The screen resolution leaves a bit to be desired (1024×600), but I realize that it’s not meant to be everything that a full-size computer is. For what I’m using it for, the resolution will work just fine, though. Actually, I’m turning the resolution down to 800×600 for this project.

When I get things where they need to be with this project, and leave the computer where it ends up, I will probably think about getting another one for personal use. Since I’m already mobile, and my main laptop goes everywhere with me, there might not be a reason for it, but we’ll see. If the project that I’m using it for takes off and works like I think it should, I’m sure I’ll be buying quite a few more or them.