Besides having the new chipset there are very few changes from the original Aspire One. Here are the full specs:

• Processor: 1.67GHz Intel Atom N450
• Graphics: integrated Intel Atom GMA 3150
• Ram: 1GB (up to 2GB)
• Display: 10.1″ 1024 x 600
• 160GB hd
• Windows 7 starter
• 802.11 b/g/n
• vga out, headphone/mic , usb x 3

The lid is slightly different with a half-black and half-blue metallic look to it, and is very glossy which picks up fingerprints.

The design is the same as the original AO751, but the trackpad now has an Asus style raised bump pattern on it. The keyboard remains the same as on earlier models, with its flat and large key style. We really like this style of keyboard, but not as much as some of the new island-style ones.

The display is nice, and watching full-screen videos from Hulu and the like is no problem, although it can’t stream HD videos without becoming laggy. Here are Joanna’s results from the PCMark05 tests:

As you can see it’s pretty close to the same as other Pine Trail netbooks, not noticeably slower. The battery lasts around 8 hours or so with normal use, and looping a video at 65% screen brightness resulted in 6.5 hours of life.

The best part about this netbook is its price, at only $299. This is by far the best netbook for the price right now, and if you want a good all-around performer with a 10.1″ screen and long battery life then this is it.

Besides Onyx blue, it’s also available in Matrix Silver and Garnett Red.

via engadget

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• Intel Celeron SU2300 (dual-core, 1.2GHz)
• 11.6” 1366 x 768 display (glossy, 230 cd/m2)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit OS)
• 2GB RAM (800MHz PC2-5300)
• 250GB HDD (5400RPM, 2.5” SATA)
• Intel GS45 Chipset / GMA 4500MHD Graphics
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Gigabit LAN
• 5-in-1 Card Reader, HDMI, VGA, mic in, audio out (S/PDIF), LAN, 3x USB 2.0, Kensington lock
• 0.3MP Webcam
• Dolby Sound Room, Stereo Speakers
• 6-Cell Li-ion Battery (4400mAh – rated at 6 hours)
• 1.41kg

As you can see it has a dual core processor and is beefed up for Windows 7 with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. For $399 this is a heck of alot of hardware to pack into a netbook. The GMA4500MHD graphics has no problem pumping out full HD resolution videos through its HDMI port. And of course the dual core processor is alot zippier than the Atom processors that we are used to.

Here is the front of the netbook:

It has some cool status led’s on the front for bluetooth, wifi, and power.

One the left side it has vga out, power, hdmi out and 1 usb 2.0

On the left is multi card reader, mic and headphone, 2 x usb’s, and ethernet.

The keyboard is full-size and we’ve never had any problems with typing on these keyboards even though some people state that they are “mushy” or “spongey” feeling. Overall we think that they work just fine and there were no problems with missed keys or anything.

The trackpad is nice as well and has 2 seperate buttons which is much better than the “unibutton” on some other netbooks.

Over all if you want an 11.6″ netbook then this is the way to go. At only $399 from Amazon for a dual core processor, 250GB hard drive and Windows 7 you can’t go wrong.

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• Processor: SU2300 dual core Celeron
• Speed: 1.2GHz
• Graphics: Intel GMA 4500MHD
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
• Display: 11.6″ 1366×768
• RAM: 2GB
• Hard Drive: 160GB
• battery life: 6 hours
• Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n

These specs are very impressive to say the least. With a dual core 1.2GHz processor and an Intel 4500MHD graphics processor this netbook has no problem handling almost any task you can throw at it, including the imfamous streaming HD flash video. Not to mention that it has a full-size keyboard as well.

This netbook is identical to the Acer Aspire One 11.6″ that I reviewed earlier, except for some beefier internals and different OS.

I am very partial to 11.6″ screens over 10.1″ ones because the 1366 pixel horizontal resolution prevents alot of side-scrolling when browsing the internet. The battery life of 6 hours is pretty good considering the dual core processor.

The 2GB of RAM along with Windows 7 home premium make this one of the best deals I’ve seen up to this point. You can get one for $450 from Amazon.

*update* Here is a performance comparison (between single and dual core models) performed by Brad from Lilliputing which will give you a better idea of the speed of the dual core processor:

The Acer Aspire 1410 with the SU3500 processor is significantly faster than a typical netbook when it comes to CPU-intensive tasks such as playing HD video, video games, or transcoding audio and video files.

The new model with the dual core SU2300 processor performed even better in some cases, but not in every test. For instance:

Video test (transcoding 2:22 file from uncompressed AVI to XViD):

• Windows Vista/SU3500 model: 2 minutes, 41 seconds
• Windows 7/SU2300 model: 2 minutes, 9 seconds

Audio test (Converting 30:03 WAV file to MP3):

• Windows Vista/SU3500 model: 1 minute, 10 seconds
• Windows 7/SU2300 model: 1 minute, 18 seconds

So while the new model was faster at transcoding video using VirtulDub, it was a little slower at transcoding audio using WinLame. It’s possible that your results may vary if you use different audio and video files, different codecs, or different trancoding utilities.

It’s worth pointing out that when I ran the same tests on a netbook with an Intel Atom N270 CPU, they took 2-3 times longer to complete. So both versions of the Acer Aspire 1410 blow away a typical netbook when it comes to this kind of CPU-intensive tasks.

When it comes video playback, the laptop can handle 720p or 1080p video playback fairly well. I felt like there might have been a few dropped frames here and there, but overall playback was smooth and pretty watchable.

The laptop could also handle HD Flash video from YouTube, something which most netbooks with integrated GMA 950 graphics choke on. What’s interesting is that standard definition video from online video site Hulu gave the Aspire 1410 a little more trouble than HD YouTube videos.

Some TV episodes and movies from Hulu played back flawlessly. But others were a bit jumpy. Overall, this laptop performed noticably better with Hulu video than the Windows Vista/SU3500 model and significantly better than most netbooks with Intel Atom processors and 1366 x 768 pixel displays.

But playback wasn’t perfect. So if you’re looking for a machine that can handle Flash video as well as local videos, you might want to spring for one of the higher end models or grab an NVIDIA ION powered netbook like the HP Mini 311.

Right now that ION graphics processor won’t help with Flash video, but Adobe is expected to release an updated version of Flash Player later this year or early next year that will support NVIDIA graphics, enabling 1080p Flash video playback on low power netbooks and notebooks.

I also ran my new set of benchmarks, which I plan to run on most new computers I test, at least until I run out of systems with different processors and graphics (There’s not much point in benchmarking yet another netbook with a 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and so forth). Here are the results from the new benchmarks:

• Audio transcoding test: 36 seconds to transcode a 13:24 WAV file to MP3
• Video transcoding test:  3:56 to transcode a 4:34 file
• Folder copy: Between 0:55 and 1:05  to copy and paste 2186 files totaling 478MB  (I ran this test several times)
• Folder zip test: 1:38 to create a 453MB ZIP file containing 2186 files

For comparison’s sake, the Asus UL30A, which has a dual core 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor completed the audio test in 32 seconds, the video test in 3:22, the folder copy test in 10 seconds, and the folder zip test in 1:02. The UL30A is clearly faster, but not a lot faster.

On the other hand, the Asus UL30A received a Windows Experience Index score of 3.4 and had higher subscores than the Acer Aspire 1410 in almost every category. The Aspire 1410 got a 3.2, with the lowest scores concentrated in the graphics and gaming graphics areas.

As you can see for the price this is one fast netbook, at only $450.

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I had read some reviews that almost turned me away from buying it saying the keyboard was “spongy” and the processor was slow and laggy. After using it for a few days I can say that these problems are very minor and if you want a fast processor then don’t get a netbook.

The keyboard is full size which I really like, and they decided to use flat raised keys instead of ones with beveled edges. I personally like beveled edges better but after typing on it for awhile it was a non issue, and the keys are actually a little larger without the beveled edges.

I’ve used netbooks with the 1.6GHz Atom processor and this one has the 1.3GHz Atom and I really can’t tell a difference. It has 1GB of RAM which I’ll probably upgrade to 2 with some Corsair or Crucial which will speed things up a little. The Intel GMA950 video card which most netbooks have is a little laggy with full-screen video, especially HD. Youtube videos play fine in normal resolution and Divx and external dvd drives play fine in full-screen modes also. My observed boot-up time has been around 28 seconds, sans bloatware of course.

The battery life is listed at 7 hours max and this is about right, usually around 6 when I’m using it alot.

You won’t want to play half-life 2 or anything on this netbook but it will play small games fine which is all you can expect from a netbook. What it does do very well is browse the web which it is optimized very well for. It is very zippy when browsing through websites and is actually faster opening some pages than my core 2 duo 4GB workstation, probably because it’s still a relatively fresh windows install.

The screen is definitely the strong point of this netbook, the 1366×768 resolution looks exponentially larger than the 1024×768 you see on most netbooks. It is also a glossy finish which some people don’t prefer but I actually do but it’s a personal preference. Also the webcam works very well and integrates seamlessly through gmail which is nice. It has the standard external ports: 3usb’s and vga out along with headphone and mic jacks.

I got the blue model and I like the color, it looks like it has a real light metal flake in it actually. It’s also very glossy which looks good until it’s covered in fingerprints but there is a solution to this and it’s to wipe them off.

Overall I’m very happy with this laptop and would recommend it over the 10-inch models if you’re going to be doing alot of web browsing and typing which is probably why you’re getting a netbook to start with. I got mine from Amazon for under $310.

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• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor
• 1GB DDR2 RAM upgradeable to 2GB
• 160GB SATA hard drive
• 802.11 b/g wifi
• 10.1-inch 1024×600 LCD display
• 6-cell battery with 6.5 hours battery life

The best feature of this netbook is its price. I saw the red one today on Amazon for under $300 which is an incredible deal. This is also for the 6-cell battery, not a 3-cell that comes with most netbooks in this price range, and it’s good for around 6.5 hours.

The keyboard on the Aspire one is one of the best in its class and is easy to type on and the keys feel very solid and well-made. The trackpad has the usual unibutton left and right buttons which we all know and love, so you might want to get a wireless mouse if it will be seeing extended use.

Another downside on this netbook is if you try to upgrade the RAM to 2GB. There is no memory access door on the bottom of the netbook like other models, so you will have to take the netbook completely apart to upgrade it. There are tutorials available that walk you through this process if you want to do it though.

You can watch full-screen HD movies if played from an external source, but don’t try it with an embedded flash/java player such as youtube without delays. Normal definition content streams fine though. Where this really shines is web browsing. I’ve been observing 1.5Mb/s download speeds over wireless and web browsing is even zippier at times than on my $3000 workstation. This is definitely what this netbook was optimized for.

Even though the XP version is available for under $300 I would definitely recommend the Windows 7 version for only $29 more here.

Over all the best feature of this netbook is its price. If you want a $300 10.1″ netbook with all of the usual features then this is the one for you.

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