Acer Aspire One D260 review

Aspire One is the first Acer netbook that came into our office.  The little guy is elegant, light and has great specs for a netbook. The girls liked it more, due to the bright purple of the casing.

When you’re always on the run, you’re not comfortable carrying 2-3 kg around (about the weight of a classic 14-15 inch laptop). Therefore, you tend to choose something lighter, like a netbook. This is what i did for a 2 weeks period, when I had a lot of field work, and I chose the Acer Aspire One D260.

This netbook was first announced by Acer back in June at Computex 2010. But before we rush into any details, let me tell you a few things about the history of Acer Aspire One. This netbook series was launched by Acer in July 2008, when the netbook madness was catching up.  The Aspire One netbooks are equipped with Intel Atom processors and are available in white, sapphire blue, onix black, pink, etc. Acer also released this year netbooks that feature AMD Athlon II Neo processors as well as ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics. Aspire One uses Windows or Linux as operating systems, and packs 1-2 GB of RAM and up to 320 GB hard drives.

I first came across an Acer netbook in the spring of 2009. IT was small and light, but I kept hearing rumors that weren’t quite encouraging. Most users complained about poor processing speeds which caused applications to stop responding. We can’t confirm or dismiss these rumors, but what we can say is that the Aspire One D260 did great.

Aspire One D260 on the outside

The new Aspire One D260 sports an elegant and stylish design with better finish than previous Aspire One netbooks. The case is sturdy with a glossy finish and has a purple lavender color (the color of the model we tested). The “Aspire One” logo was moved from the upper left corner right to the middle of the case, and both the font type and size have been changed, making it more visible.

The palmrest and touchpad have a matte finish, and this sets it apart from other Aspire One models which have glossy palmrests and touchpads and attract fingerprints and smudges. The touchpad offers great accuracy, and the keyboard has a friendly layout with large, flat keys.

The Acer Aspire One uses a standard WSVGA 10.1 inch display which manages to squeeze 1024 x 600 pixels. What I found annoying are the small visibility angles. It’s ok if you use it for work at the office, but it’s not exactly suited for multimedia.

Talking connectivity, it features 3 USB 2.0 ports (2 on the left and 1 on the right), one RJ-45 port, headphones and mic jacks, one VGA port and a card reader.

Aspire D260 on the inside

Under the hood, you can find the following standard specs:

- 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor;
- 1 GB of DDR2 RAM;
- 160 GB hard drive;
- Intel GMA 3150 graphics;
- Windows 7 Starter;
- 6 cell battery.

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Performance

The Acer Aspire One D260 is practical and easy to use. The Windows 7 Starter gets the best out of it, flawlessly running office, Internet and multimedia apps. Aspire One is no multimedia or gaming laptop, so we shouldn’t expect it to run FullHD videos or the latest games, but it managed to run 480p and 720p YouTube videos just fine. D260 was built with mobility and ease of use in mind, and given the small size and weight (only 1.25 kg), it can easily fit into any backpack or laptop bag.

Speaking numbers, Aspire D260 received a 2.4 Windows score, being exclusively decided by the Atom processor. The graphics card received a 3.1 score and the memory 4.5 and. The HDD managed to pull a 5.3 mark, but I found it a little slow. Following the HD Tune test the access time was (19.5 ms) and the average transfer rate was 46.6 MB/s.

The six-cell battery can power the D260 for 7.5-8 hrs. In “High Performance” mode with the display brightness set to 100%, wi-fi on, web browsing, as well as video and audio playback, the battery autonomy reaches 5 hrs. We can say that Aspire One D260 is one of the netbooks with the best battery autonomy.

During these tests, the netbook didn’t overheat and the cooling system didn’t go haywire.

Wrap-up

We recommend the Acer Aspire One to everyone who wants an elegant, stylish netbook. Aspire D260 comes with a fresh look, with a standard netbook configuration and a better battery than previous models had. The model we tested – Acer Aspire One D260-2Duu – came with a Windows 7 Starter OS. Talking software, you’ll get ePower Management, eRecovery Management and CrystalEye Webcam. You can use it to run HD Ready videos, but not Full HD. D260 proved to be one of the best netbooks to pack an Intel Atom N450 processor.

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