Going Smaller (Acer Aspire One)

I have previously mentioned that I cannot phantom possible use for the rise in the Mini-PC laptop world. You know, the kind where you have to hunch over like a squirrel about to devour a nut and contort your fingers in order to type anything while you sit 3″ away from the 7″ screen that you can’t make anything out on. Paired with the latest in the light-speed C7 chip not fit to power a middle school calculator watch, it really makes one wonder just who in their right minds would want one.

Then my mother pretty much makes me eat my words by asking for a small PC so she can chat and email now that she’s done working. My parents are typical middle aged couple that have postit notes and directions on what to click on, what to drag where and how to troubleshoot their home laptop. But there is unrest at the Sr. Mazek household – they have been fighting over the PC. My dad has been accusing my mom of messing up his computer. And now that they want to watch their grandson around the clock, mom wants a PC.

My first (mean) thought is to ask the folks in Dallas to pull one off the rack and ship it to her. I figure once they plug in one of the monsters and it blows them clear across the room they’ll stop asking. But I figured, OK, I’ll go find you a cheap laptop.

So I went and looked at Eee’s, and MSI Wind (which I wanted but they are all out of stock) and I ended up with Acer Aspire One since it was 1) In Stock 2) Cheap and 3) Had a webcam. About $300 or so, with 9″ screen, 120GB hard drive, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, Windows XP Home, 0.3 Megapixel camera, bunch of USB ports (3) and connections, Ethernet (Gigabit lol), VGA out as well as a memory reader:

Here it is next to a can of coke and Red Bull. It’s tiny. That’s pretty much it’s only downside – it’s tiny. The keyboard is very hard to type on and the mouse pad sucks. Instead of Dell-style mouse tabs on the bottom it has them on left and right. However, when you tap the mousepad twice it does left click so it’s not as bad as it might appear.

Weight just about 2lb. Promises about two hours of battery. I am sure that assumes that no applications are open, that you’re running in BIOS, with the light display turned all the way down.

For $300, not bad. For more, you’re better off with a real laptop.