Ultra Portable Notebooks

In the last few years, the ultra portable notebook market has really taken off.  The ultra portable notebooks rest firmly somewhere between a PDA and a full size (full power) notebook we all know and love.  Until very recently, the Ultra portable notebooks have been little more than glorified PDAs with a computing power on par with high end cellphones.   Combined with small screens, low power and micro storage , the ultra portable ’sub notebook’ wasn’t ready for the mainstream and was the realm of the micro Linux tech communities and people who built their own computers.  Thanks to some recent additions to the sub notebook market, the new ultra portables are ready for the masses.

One of the greatest features of these ultra portable notebooks (sub notebooks) is the SSD (Solid State Drive).  Not only are SSDs much lighter than their spinning cousins, SSD drives aren’t prone to failure from shock like standard platter hard drives.  There are no moving parts in a SSD, so those little bumps aren’t going to scratch and damage the solid state drive like the standard hard drive.  Solid state drives also use about 5% of the power of the standard HDD and this means a big boost in battery life. The problem with the SSD is the cost, these things are expensive and because of the limitations, most ultraportables have store capacities as low as 2GB.

The real attraction to the ultra portable notebook market is the ultra portability.  You’ve seen pictures on the net, but until you have one in your hands, you won’t believe how small they really are.  I mean small!  These are smaller than most books and will fit easily into a purse.  How’s that for portability!

Ultra Portable : The New Beginning

In the uber competitive laptop market, Asus came in under the radar not too long ago with the Asus EEE PC 700 series.  A small ’sub notebook’, the Asus EEE PC was fitted with with a diminutive  7″ screen, miniature keyboard and the power to match.  It was a really cool mini laptop, but with a 900mhz CPU, 512MB RAM and a 2GB SDD, the Asus EEE PC just doesn’t have the horsepower that consumers need in a laptop, even if the laptop is tiny.

Asus EEE PC 900 Series

Now this is what I’m talking about, 8.9″ LCD finally made viewing the ultra portable laptops a little easier.  Storage increased from a ridiculous 2GB to an acceptable 12GB model.  But what I was really missing from the EEE PC series was the Intel Atom processors.  The Asus EEE PC still didn’t have enough ‘umph’ to make it much more than a PDA and could not handle the pressure of mainstream computing needs.  The Asus EEE PC 900 series still used the 900mhz processors.  With the lack of CPU, the Asus 900 series was still little more than a internet device and not really functional for speedy application use.  And even though the screen got bigger, the Asus EEE PC 900 series still had a tiny keyboard that’s hard to use.

Acer Aspire One

Finally, something better! The Acer Aspire One picked up where Asus left off.  Using the best features of the EEE PC, Acer’s Aspire One starts with the 8.9″ screen, which at 1024 width, is wide enough for all websites and allows enough screen to do some real work.  And that’s about where the similarities end to the Asus EEE PC.  Asus fell behind with the 900mhz processor, but Acer jumped in the market with an Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU in the base model of the Acer Apire One.  This is HUGE!  You can actually run graphics programs with large files and not have a crash.  Another area where Acer must have been listening to the Asus crowd is the keyboard.  Asus users had been complaining about the tiny keyboards since the 700 and the 900 had the same keyboard size – ugh!  One of the features many users of the Aspire One like the most, seems to be the bigger keyboard.  Rather than the tiny keyboard of the EEE PC, the Aspire One’s keyboard is a 95% keyboard.  That means, the keys are more like a real keyboard and you can ‘touch type’ a lot easier.

Asus EEE PC vs. Acer Aspire One

CPU:  Acer Aspire One beat the Asus EEE PC 900 by a mile!
Acer Aspire 1 = 1.6GHz Intel Atom
Asus EEE PC 900 =  900mhz

Screen: Acer Aspire One beat the Asus EEE PC 900, but it was close.  The Crystal Brite screen on the Aspire One made Acer the winner:
Acer Aspire 8.9″ with Crystal Brite
Asus 8.9″

Storeage*: Asus EEE PC 900 beats the Acer Aspire One, but only in the SSD models
Acer Aspire One 8GB SSD
Asus EEE PC 12GB

Additional Storeage: Acer Aspire One beats the Asus EEE PC 900
Acer Aspire One: 3 USB and 2 SDHC slots
Asus EEE PC 900: 2 USB 1 SD slot

Looks: The Acer Aspire One looks and feels better than the Asus EEE PC 900
Acer Aspire One : Solid feel and nice looking.
Asus EEE PC 900: If it didn’t show fingerprints so bad, it would have been a tie.

Layout:  Acer Aspire owns Asus EEE PC 900
This one isn’t really fair.  The Acer Aspire one is 24mm wider than the Asus EEE PC 900.  While that’s only about the width of my thumb, Acer made the most of it by using a larger keyboard layout which make typing much easier.  Also, the Acer Aspire has the additional USB and SDHC slots and that’s something you don’t want to under estimate with the small SSD in these.

Overall, I choose the Acer Aspire One.  It has more power, bigger keyboard, more storage options and a great desin.  After you get yours, be sure and check around the forums for all the tweaks, mods and accesories that are going to make the Acer Aspire One the next ultrportable to beat in 2009!

Aspire One Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz Mini-Notebook – Seashell White Intel Atom N270 1.60GHz 512MB DDR2 533 SDRAM and 8GB Solid-State Drive 8.9″ WSVGA LCD Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Fast Ethernet 802.11b/g Linux AspireOne