HP mini has a great keyboard layout, but otherwise I don’t know why it would be best.
I hated the touchpad for scrolling because it’s so narrow vertically, but then I discovered the ChiralMotion option in the Synaptics Touchpad Settings program. It lets you continue scrolling up or down by moving your finger in circles on the pad (clockwise scrolls down and counter-clockwise scrolls up) and wasn’t enabled by default on my system. I have no idea if this is one of the things that was irritating you, but it’s been a Godsend for me. I still hate the damned buttons, though.
Where is that option? Can’t find it anywhere on mine.
Get to the Mouse Properties window via Control Panel or by double-clicking that red Synaptics Pointing Device icon in the System Tray. Make sure the Device Settings tab is selected, highlight the Synaptics TouchPad entry, and click Settings. Click the Virtual Scrolling entry and check the box next to Enable ChiralMotion Scrolling before clicking Apply.
Another nice option in there is to expand Tapping, click Tap Zones, and turn that on and configure it. Makes right-clicking easier and you can use it to simulate a middle mouse button (or other mouse buttons) as well.
My aspire one does something even my gaming desktop can’t do…
It plays the HELL out of TIE Fighter Collector CD. Can’t turn on 3D hardware mode but the game looks GOOD on that small screen anyway. Have to mount the iso with daemon tools, and off we go.
My Aspire One just died, six weeks in. Not happy at all.
It’s an Acer. Did anyone seriously think that because it was a netbook and not a notebook or desktop or LCD that it would magically be immune from their absolutely awful quality?
I was unaware! So, any recommendations for a netbook that won’t break after six weeks?
my wind is still going strong pos touch pad and all
The Asus Eee 1000 series is the most solid I’ve seen. (The smaller ones are more fragile.) The Wind’s well-constructed as well.
That’s good to hear- I just pulled the trigger on a Wind for my girlfriend this afternoon.
Looking seriously at the Samsung NC10 when my Aspire One refund clears. Great battery life and the right keyboard layout (PageUp/PageDown next to the arrow keys). I’m assuming that the build quality will be better than the Acer.
That’s an excellent choice, David. There’s nothing on the market that beats the Samsung right now…
Amazon is awesome. They refunded my Acer in full (plus shipping) without complaint, even though it was well past the 30 day return period. Ordered the Samsung NC10 the same day, from Amazon naturally.
geezus, $478 for the NC10? The build quality on the Acer one isn’t that bad – certainly not bad enough for me to shell out another $100+ for the same specs!
Yep. When I was in school, a “portable computer” was a Kaypro. It was about the size of a standard desktop, had a tiny CRT screen and had an attached suitcase handle for “easy portability”! I was on the cutting-edge back in those days–I typed all my papers on a Commodore 64 and printed them on an Okidata 94 dot-matrix printer. All the other luddites used typewriters!
The specs aren’t exactly the same. The Samsung has a bigger screen (physically, same resolution) and more importantly a bigger keyboard. I’ve been using the NC10 for about a month and a half now and it is the ONLY netbook that I’ve tried (which includes the Aspire One) that has a keyboard that I can actually use without wanting to smash the thing into little pieces.
There are other benefits of the NC10 too like it has a standard trapdoor memory slot for when you inevitably want to bring it up to 2gb whereas the Aspire One has to be completely disassembled (with bonus voided warranty) to upgrade the ram.
Good to know, but minor perks at best; I guess it depends how many novellas you plan to be typing on your netbook. Most people are just content consumers, so all they do is click and scroll, with a tiny fragmentary bit of blog comment or facebook status typing every so often.
$100+ more for the same specs is way too big of a bump at the netbook price point, IMO.
For me it is a binary decision so the $100 isn’t that big of a sticking point. The Aspire One is just plain unusable because the keyboard is for little girls and less than 2gb of memory is stupid. The bigger screen and slightly better battery life are just icing on the cake.
But yeah, YMMV.
I hear you, but honestly 1GB is puh-lenty for XP. Unless you’re planning to run Vista or something more modern.
People forget that XP was released 7.5 years ago, and has a minimum memory req of 64 MB. It’s happier than a pig in slop with 512 mb, and 1 GB is do-whatever party time.