When troubled with a bit of Gaussian Blur action in The Gimp, it took an average of 4.8 seconds to apply the filter to our standard test image, which is in line with other Atom-based netbooks.
Video Playback Battery Life Results
Battery Life in Minutes
Longer bars are better
On our scales, the Aspire One D250 weighed in at just 1.1kg, making it one of the lightest 10in netbooks you'll find. Taking its lightweight nature into account, the fact it managed to last two hours and twenty-four minutes in our high-strain video playback test is admirable. You'll get much more than this by going easier on the D250, and with a fully-charged battery Windows estimated there was enough juice for just under six hours of action.
Take the six-cell version and you'll do even better, of course.
Forget the D150 - this is the real successor to the original AA1
Verdict
Usability is paramount when it comes to netbooks, and given the updated keyboard found on Acer's Aspire One 751 it's hard not to feel a little hard done by that the company has opted to use the old Aspire One A110 keyboard on the D250.
The new machine is not without its charms, but with the similarly specified Eee PC 1000HE boasting 802.11n, a better keyboard and a barn-storming nine-hour maximum battery life, we suspect many will opt for Asus' offering, especially since it costs the same.
Naturally, the Eee PC 1000HE's long battery life means a bigger battery and, in turn, a heavier 1.45kg netbook – it's almost twice as thick, too - it's up to you whether you think it's worth the extra 350g. ®
More Netbook Reviews...
Asus Eee PC 1008HA |
MSI Wind U115 Hybrid |
Acer Aspire One 751 |
Samsung NC10 |
Acer Aspire One D250
COMMENTS
@Ben Bradley
Slightly off topic, but your Zotax ION w/ atom 330 - have you checked your core temps if you're running it passive? A friend of mine took the fan off the heatsink and temps skyrocketed. Or have you got it in a case with a 120mm fan? Just curious as I'm thinking of getting one.
Agree w/Ben Bradley
Picked up the D150 6-cell version for my wife at the weekend, and she's thrilled to bits. It's VERY usable, with great battery life (which is important for her), a decent screen and good performance. Yes, you can still get the AA1, but the battery's useless and the SSD versions were awful. As far as she's concerned she's got everything she'd want an ultraportable to do for a LOT less cash. OK, I can see that some peoples' usage is different, but that's kind of the point.
Price no biggie
I was initially planning on getting the HP Mini 2140, small size and looks good.
Then the EEE 1000HE arrived with insane battery*, better screen res than the HP and I realised I'm not one of those form over substance morons.
Now the EEE 1005HA-M has arrived (in France at least) which is a cross between the 1000HE and the 1008HA seashell thing!
*enough battery to use it on a transatlantic flight sounds good to me... so I don't have to put up with Miss Congeniality 2 or some other tripe.
But sod it, I might not buy one at all and just keep waiting for whatever's round the corner.
Well done Asus, with all this saturation you're missing out on my custom at the moment.
But I do want to wait for Nvidia ION to start appearing in netbooks though.
I've built a new HTPC using a Zotac ION dual-core atom mini-itx board and it's incredible... GPU accelerated 1080p playback all for only 30W power usage and passive cooling!
Price... I'm not too fussed about paying £300 for a netbook.
They were probably making losses on the £150 models, and the EEE7x is less than usable IMO. The £300 netbooks today, easily compare with those incredible £1500+ ultraportables from a few years back... with better battery life!
Yeah you can get the latest and greatest Packard Bell (gah!) from PC World... but I know what I'd rather own
Acer's damn trackpad buttons
Acer doesn't seem to get it with these buttons. I have an old Aspire 3680 here and it suffers from the same button problems. You have to press down on them quite firmly and they respond with a "CLICK!". It gets annoying very quickly, which is too bad because the rest of the laptop is well made and even somewhat attractive.
Like a lot of the other comments too expensive
Fo rme a netbook is the most power I can get in a 10" or smaller form factor for £200.
Anything bigger then that or more expensive then that and I consider it a competitor for a real noteobok
As @Martin said 'If a netbook is £329, you start to wonder whether for another fifty quid you could get a decent sized screen and keyboard.'
Still waiting to see what effect if any the next generation of chips makes on the market.
NVidia ION, new integrated chips fronm Intel and new chipsets from AMD.
I also expect the currency exchange rate is playing a big part in pushing up the prices but I still get paid in GBP, so the £200 mark is my netbook max.
