Acer Aspire One review

With the lid closed, the Aspire One is just 29mm thick, making it the slimmest netbook on test. It's also among the lightest, beaten only by the Apricot. So as far as portability goes, the Aspire One leads the pack.

That isn't the end of Acer's achievements. Apart from the Dell, which comes 'free' with a 3G mobile broadband contract, the Acer is also the cheapest machine on test. Yet there's little about it that shows any signs of corner cutting. The case is attravailable, and the keyboard is quite comfortable, though not the most spacious. You even get a webcam built in. The 120GB hard disk may not be the largest here, but it's more than enough for a reasonably large collection of documents and music. If you want to spend even less, a version with 8GB of flash memory in place of the hard disk is available for just £179 (www.simplyacer.com).

There are foibles, though. The trackpad is small, and the mouse buttons are unusually set on either side of it. This takes some getting used to, though it may come down to personal taste. The same could be said of the operating system. Unlike the majority of netbooks, which now run Microsoft Windows XP, the Aspire One uses a version of the free, open source Linux operating system, Linpus. The lack of a Windows licence goes some way to accounting for the low price; to what extent it limits usability depends on your willingness to try something a bit different. Far from being daunting, the OS here is rather simplistic. If you've never strayed from Windows before, you may need a while to orientate yourself, and you'll also need to seek out compatible applications that cover any non-standard requirements. Acer pre-installs OpenOffice, a free suite that's largely compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, so you can get straight on with work.

If the Aspire One has a serious flaw, it's battery life, which is more typical of a full size laptop. At the price, though, it's an attractive buy.