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As other reviews have said, the initial setup process is SLOW. Be patient, and put the laptop aside until it is done. Once the install was done, then the ubiquitous Windows Updates (28 in all for me), take their pound of flesh, er, time. Once it finally is ready for you, it boots and runs reasonably well. After a few days of use, I removed the McAfee antivirus 60 day trial that was included with the PC and installed Avast! free antivirus instead. Response is noticeably quicker with this lightweight antivirus compared to the bloated McAfee.
Overall, the laptop is great value and very convenient size. Performance is about what you would expect with such a slow processor, but it’s quite useful for web browsing (I use Firefox) and lightweight word processing. It wouldn’t suit many people as their only PC, but for those trips when you want to pack lightly, or a day on the road or at a remote office, it’s great. The 16 Gbytes of memory in the hard-drive-free version doesn’t sound like much, but the installed applications take much less than half of this, so it’s pretty reasonable unless you want to load a huge Itunes library or lots of videos.
For it’s intended application as a super-portable web browser, it’s a perfect fit.
Okay, I’ve had 2 of these mini laptops now. The first I bought on vacation in North Carolina at a well known chain electronics store. When I started using the laptop, there were unusually long pauses during initial setup. When you first power the laptop on it initiates 7 updates/installs. On 2 of 7 it took so long, I just set it aside and came back later. Same thing with both laptops.
After that initial install, I didn’t have any problems, but as you worked on the computer, you still had these unusually long pauses, I’m talking 15-30 seconds, long enough that you’d start to think the computer had locked or you hadn’t quite clicked on the icon.
Rather quickly I noticed that the right keypad button wasn’t quite right. When you pressed it, you had to push it -way- down, almost a 1/4 of an inch. I finally decided to take the laptop back because of this, concerned that whatever was defective would get worse with use. I went to the local chain store here in Florida and swapped it out for another. When I got it home, I found that it had the same problem. I’ll be returning it for a refund this morning.
Other things I noticed. First, I really liked the laptop. I bought it to replace the laptop I tune my race car with. Between the battery life and the small size, this one was ideal. It has plenty of USB ports. It comes with an 8gb SD card and it has 2 card readers. Also, even though this is a mini, it has a monitor port (not DVI), so you can still set this up like a workstation. This laptop is so small, thin, and light, I could see someone working in the field slipping it in a large pocket to free up their hands.
However, I’m not sold on the SSD drive. I think the long pauses were due to the hard drive, especially on that initial install. Also, this one is only 8gb, so why did Acer install Google Desktop and MS Office 60 day trial? I freed up .5gb just by uninstalling the frivolous software.
Also, the same defect, the keypad key, on 2 different laptops. One is a fluke, two is a pattern. If I had bought them from the same location, I would have thought it was a bad lot, and it still may be, but I think that is less likely with one from NC, the other from FL. I checked the floor model in FL and the keypad button worked just like you would expect, so this isn’t a “feature.”
If you are considering this laptop, I would seriously consider the version with a regular hard drive, rather than the SSD. Hopefully the repeat problem I had with the keypad was a particular lot and will be avoided, just by buying from Amazon.
Pros: Price point $258 can’t be beat – love the form factor(very small) but a very usable keyboard – excellent display and options easily between external display, both or either. Runs extremely cool, never worry about overheating – All solid state no HDD to leave you high and dry. Very good for surfing web – does great job with skype video calls – Runs open office software really well — built in web cam very sharp with built in microphone – very nice mouse pad built in and will run a usb mouse concurrently – 3 usb ports and one dedicated flash card for more memory and an additional multi card reader – Built in wifi does a very good job with decent range.
Cons: Seems a little slow but I’m comparing to a dual core desktop with more memory – it is very good if you only run one thing at a time – DOCUMENTATION SUCKS nothing on many of the features and hardware issues like how to upgrade memory THIS ALMOST GOT IT A 3 RATING! – no optical drive but uses desktop drives when networked and the desktop drive is shared – same with printers
I’m a little hard on the cons because I like to tinker with these things – but it really is great if you need it for a non-tech person who wants to do email (Thunderbird) or surf the net (Firefox).
Not the best as a primary computer but great as a second machine that you can pick up and go with immediately – weighs around 2 pounds.
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