- 1.2GHz Intel Celeron SU2300 Processor
- 2GB DDR2 667MHz Memory
- 250GB SATA Hard Drive; 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N Wifi Connectivity
- 11.6″ HD WXGA Acer CrystalBrite LED-backlit Display; Intel GMA 4500MHD Graphics
- Windows 7 Home Premium; Up to 6 Hours of Battery Life
Product DescriptionAcer Aspire AS1410-2706 Notebook comes with these specs: Intel Celeron Processor SU2300, Windows 7 Home Premium, 11. 6-Inch HD WXGA Acer CrystalBrite LED-backlit Display, Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset, 2048MB DDR2 667MHz Memory, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, 250GB SATA Hard Drive, Acer Crystal Eye Webcam, Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, Dolby Sound Room Audio Enhancement, Intel WiFi Link 1000 802. 11a/b/g/Draft-N, 3 – USB 2. 0 Ports, 1 – HDMI Port. . . More >>
Acer Aspire AS1410-2706 11.6-Inch Red Laptop – Up to 6 Hours of Battery Life
Comments
1 comment
February 18, 2010
For the past 11 years my company has met my computing needs by supplying me with Lenovo laptops. They are fantastic, high quality, albeit expensive machines. When the time came to buy something small and portable for my wife, I naturally thought of Lenovo. I knew I wanted something a few notches above the plethora of slow Atom 10″ netbooks littering the tables at Starbucks, yet the small netbook form factor remained high on the list of must-haves. So, I started my search with Lenovo only to find nothing really fit. Most of their small machines were Atom based, and the ones that weren’t cost too much. Disappointed, I turned to some other trusted brands: Sony, HP, Toshiba, even Dell. Same result – plenty of cheap Atoms, but if I wanted an Atom I’d get an Asus like the rest of the world.
I almost ended my search for a small, fast, portable 12″ sub-notebook with a CULV processor that wouldn’t break the budget. In fact, I’d decided to go with ASUS 1201N, one of the newest Atom based machines featuring HD capability. Then I stumbled upon this Acer!
CPU comparison (from [. . . ]):
* Acer Aspire 1410-2990 Intel SU2300 @ 1. 2GHz – PassMark CPU Score = 912
* ASUS 1201N Intel Atom 1. 6GHz Dual Core N330 Processor – PassMark CPU Score = 538
Pro’s:
* Small, light, good aesthetic appeal (and came in red making it a perfect gift for Valentine’s day)
* Impressive native resolution for an 11. 6″ screen. Really a beautiful, easy to see/read/use display. Just right.
* Dual-core CULV
* Handles HD playback very well
* HDMI
* Full size keyboard
* Track-pad mouse with gestures is great
* Decent battery life
* Almost no bloatware
* Windows 7 Home Premium, which includes Media Center (making the HDMI output actually useful for something)
Con’s:
* Power cord is bulky. (Although power brick is small and light – why such a fat cord?)
* Didn’t come with a sleeve, though hardly a con. Spend $20 on one you like.
* No recovery media. Oddly, Acer supplies a utility to burn recovery media, but it requires a USB DVD burner. eRecovery media can be ordered from Acer if needed. (I just used a PE image with cloning software booted from USB thumb drive. )
* Battery life not on par with that of an Atom based machine, but worth it for the vastly superior performance. 5 hours nothing to scoff at, anyway.
* Home and End keys can only be access via Fn modifier. My wife says she’s never used Home or End and could care less, but I use those all the time and it annoys me.
* Fan was makinga “click-click-click” sound for the first couple of days. It wasn’t really loud, but audible enough to be annoying in a quiet room. Went away on its own after a few hours of use.
Bottom line: This thing rocks. At this price point, Acer is clearly dominating this space with the AS1410. Well designed machine, and a joy to use. I appreciate that the only “bloat” I had to uninstall was: MS Office trial (replaced with OpenOffice 3. 2), McAffee trial (replace with MS Security Essentials), and Acer Games. All three of those peeled off with no hassle at all. While, for work, I run Linux on my own laptop, I found Windows 7 to be a pleasant surprise. I’ve never seen this thing called Vista everyone seems to hate, but I found Windows 7 to be snappy and intuitive. Suspend/resume and hibernate all work quickly and without error, which is really important on a machine meant to be carried about.
Two big thumbs up.
Rating: 5 / 5