15" screen /2.2G Celeron 900 /x64 chip and OS /2G DDR2 RAM/148G 4600 RPM HD /
3-USB ports on two hubs /a PCMCIA-II slot / 802.11n-draft 2.4G wireless /and a screen-bezel webcam.
This ain't no stripper. The "Windows Experience Score", a new metric introduced by Windows 7, is just 3.3 (on a 1-7.9 scale), but that's determined by the lowest subsystem score, not an average. The low-end is the graphics subsystem, Intel "Mobile 4" on-chip (GM45 probably, but I haven't dug in to find out for sure--Intel's chipset identification utility refuses to run in Windows 7, though they claim support). The rest of the system is snappier, 5.5 score on the CPU, 5.4 on the RAM, both respectable.
As for how this snuck out of BestBuy for $250 when lesser computers (i.e., every one of their 10" screen Netbooks by any vendor) all went for $100 more, I'm guessing this was a "pre-black-Friday" loss-leader. I found it on the BestBuy website quite by accident and they didn't have it on display when I went to the store an hour later (no online orders). I had to ask the clerk for it, and he hadn't heard of it. I told him the website said they had it in stock and he went looking. The next cheapest laptop was also an Acer, for $329--and it didn't have the specs of this one! When the clerk brought out the factory-sealed box, it was as-advertised. I suppose I was supremely lucky as today I look through all the stores in my area (6 within 50 miles) and only Marina (Salinas) is listed as having any. Perhaps they only had the one yesterday and I got it? Google it and you find folk selling it from $300 (SEA) to $400(ORL).
I can imagine it would be down into OLPC price range if you could get it w/o Win7 (Home Premium version!). It has a decidedly "Target" button feel over the MacBookPro's "Nordstrom" ergo that I've become accustomed to, but it is very serviceable. My biggest complaint is that the trackpad buttons to "mouseclick" are extremely loud. There's a big spring under them, quite obviously, and it sounds like a castanete. It's not thin, but that's only noticable if you have a crowded backpack.
iPhone development will have to move to our iMac, but I probably wasn't going to get into that anytime real soon. There are presently other fish to fry.
Some interesting notes are that the Acer came pre-installed with Adobe AIR and Acrobat.com AIR app, as well as Acrobat Reader, but it inexplicably did not have Flash pre-installed. Had to run the downloader/updater on just the second website I went to (after Google).
I should also point out that on our 2.4Ghz Athlon Phenom quad-core HTPC (see previous posts) Windows 7 is pretty snappy, but on this single-core 2.2G Celeron (512Mb L1 cache) it has some significant pauses--especially before throwing up an Aero dialog box. Its using main memory (800MB of the 2G avail) for the video, so the DMA controller has to do a lot when windows are swapping around. This machine isn't for gaming at all, though it does support DirectX 10. The expectations of the graphics system isn't high. It plays HD full-screen from Vimeo and Hulu w/o stuttering and will probably handle that even better when I replace the router with an "N-spec"
[Update 11/16: did get the "N" router as the venerable Linksys WRT54G started flaking out. More on that later, but the laptop loves it for streaming video!].
The 160G disk has only 148G formatted. But at least Acer doesn't squirrel away 10% of your HD for a system restore volume as other vendors do. I believe that a 500G upgrade will be pretty easy. However, following Markham's Computer Axoim #2: "Never buy disk storage until you need it because it will always be cheaper in the future", I'll wait until I'm down to low double-digits in free GBs before I make that purchase.
Other nits on the Acer are when you switch from battery to plug-in, it gives an Awful alert, probably not-unlike other versions of Windows have done when you're below the sleep threshold and the system is about to die on battery. My daughter's old ThinkPad did that just the other day. It sounds like an 80s Casio keyboard version of a french police siren. This is probably controlled by a setting, but I did jump when I plugged the laptop back-in after running on the battery all morning.
The battery experiment went from a first-charge (overnight, sleeping computer) indicating 100% in the tray to running on the battery with screen all the way bright, wireless activity, a 2.5" 7200rpm Hitachi USB2 disk, and a thumb drive all active. I got the 5% notice at almost exactly 2.5h after unplugging and waking-up the computer. After 10 minutes of being on the wire, the meter shows 17%, a good charge rate a 6-cell LiOn. I stopped watching after that. I'll look at it again after I've exercised the battery a little and am not using the external HD to load up the internal disk.
So color me happy. Double bonus of retail therapy win and new computer. I'll report more as it burns in. But even if it lasts just a year (the screen hinges look particularly lightweight and vulnerable)the amortization is still less than a computer that would last 3 years and cost $750, as was the case for the last laptop I bought, a Compaq.
Now what to do about Kasia (inheritor of the long-demised aforementioned Compaq), because she is once again the only one in the family laptopless. There is this Toshiba Satellite L455-S597 at Best Buy.... Ah, the problems of 21st century middle-class America.
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