A Netbook with a nice, full sized keyboard.

The Acer Aspire One AO751h is a dandy litte Netbook with some big features. It has a bright LED-backlit 11.6-inch high-definition screen (16:9 ratio) and a full-sized keyboard. I had no idea how powerful a Netbook would be so I put the Aspire One through a couple of mini-tests. It has an integrated Acer Crystal Eye webcam and built in mic, so I downloaded Skype and make a couple of calls. Skype worked well. My second big test (for me anyway) was downloading Slingbox. Nothing makes me feel more at home when I travel than watching my own cable box programs. There were a few glitches here and there, but in general the audio & video was fine and I was able to watch an old movie on my home DVR. Now as you can image, the speakers in this unit are small, but in a hotel room, the sound is fine. On an airplane you’ll be listening through headphones so you’ll be able to enjoy the Dolby Headphone technology. There’s a Multi-Gesture touch-pad that enables you to pinch, flick and swirl your fingers for photo viewing, sort of like using a touch screen. The AO751h-1192 (I wish it had a model name instead of letters and numbers) is powered by the 1.3 GHz Intel Atom Intel processor. Acer says you can expect about 7+ hours of computing from their 6-cell battery. Other features include a 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, a multi-format memory card reader, WiFi networking (802.11b/g), and three USB ports. This model comes pre-installed with the Microsoft Windows XP. It’s one-inch thin and weighs less than 3 pounds with the extended life battery. Display resolution is 1366 x 768-pixels, which Leo said, is higher than most other Netbooks. Although some press materials say the price ranges from $349.99 to $379.99, depending on the battery, it seems to be selling for closer to $399.99 at most online stores. Once this Netbook gets into wider distribution, the price is apt to come down a bit. So far, I love this Netbook!

http://www.acer.us/showrooms/aspireone/

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