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of the Acer Laptop Battery First post by: www.itsbattery.com
If you're looking to buy a netbook, chances are good that price is your number-one purchasing factor. If so, you'll perk up at the latest revision of Acer's Aspire One netbook, the D255, which starts at a rock-bottom $249 with a three-cell battery. (We tested an upgraded version with a six-cell battery, at $349.) With the D255, Acer rolls out an eye-pleasing, light netbook for those unconcerned with squeezing out the last drop of performance. It's an enticing product for anyone watching their pennies, while delivering a—very—slight performance edge among low-end netbooks. We thought that the addition of a dual-core processor would give it enough oomph to distinguish it from its single-core competition in the bargain basement, but the difference wasn't all that great in our tests.
Let's start with the positives. At 2.8 pounds and with a 10.1-inch screen, this netbook is a very compact package you won't mind carrying around. We loved being able to throw it in a bag, barely feeling the weight on our shoulder. It comes in four colors: black, silver, red, and blue. We tested the blue, which is attractive but not flashy, a middle-ground color for either work or play.
The keyboard is 93 percent of full size. That sounds like it should be good enough for regular typing, but it's just cramped enough to be difficult. Those with small hands may appreciate it, but it's definitely a chore for larger ones. Don't expect to type as quickly as you normally do. The touch-pad area is barely defined; it blends in with the wrist rest, which gives the Aspire a clean, open look. The pad supports multi-touch gestures for scroll, pinch, rotate, and flip, which was an unexpected convenience. (We loved being able to scroll with two fingers.) A single, raised button bar sits below the touch pad for mouse clicks. Overall, we liked the feel of the button, though we usually prefer two smaller buttons instead of one big one.
The Aspire One D255’s 10.1-inch, LED-backlit screen is one of its best features. We were always impressed by how clear, sharp, and bright this 1,024x600 screen was, regardless of what it was displaying. Above the screen, embedded in the bezel, is a built-in Webcam. It's capable of 1,280x1,024 resolution with the included Acer Crystal Eye software, but it doesn't perform well in low light, and the colors it returns are dull. One thing to note: While it seems odd to have a Webcam with a higher resolution than the screen itself, remember that the image is being sent at the Webcam's resolution, not the screen's. If the person you are video-chatting with has a higher-res screen, they’ll benefit from this Webcam.
The left side includes the power port, a VGA port, and two USB ports. The right offers an Ethernet port, a Kensington cable-lock slot, another USB port, microphone and headphone jacks, and a two-format memory-card slot (supporting the SD and MultiMediaCard formats). There are no controls on the front or back. Even this netbook's battery seems compact: It gives the rear of the Aspire just a bit of a bump to elevate it to a comfortable typing angle.
Considering that it's a $250 to $350 netbook, the Aspire One D255 is a surprisingly peppy machine, though its Intel Atom N550 dual-core CPU might lead you to expect more of a speed edge over competing single-core netbooks than it actually delivers. On our PCMark Vantage benchmark test, which measures overall system performance, the Aspire One D255 earned a score of 1,433. The average among all netbooks we've tested is 1,651, so this netbook is below average by this measure. Still, bear in mind that most netbooks, especially the lower-priced ones, can't complete this test at all. The fact that the Aspire One D255 could is a good sign. And it did beat at least one much-pricier model, the $499 Asus Eee PC 1201pn.
We run two media-file conversion tests to rate the CPU's performance. On our iTunes encoding test, which involves converting 11 standard music tracks from MP3 to AAC format, the Aspire One D255 took 19 minutes and 33 seconds. That's a hair above the netbook average (19:02). In comparison, the Gateway LT2120u, which has the same list price, took 26:30, while the HP Mini 100e, which goes for $299, took 19:22. On our Windows Media Encoder (WME) test, which involves converting a sample video file between formats, the Aspire took 18 minutes and 16 seconds to finish our test task. This was actually a pretty good time, with the Gateway netbook taking 26:30 and the HP Mini 100e taking 25:51. In fact, only three other netbooks we reviewed this year beat this score: the $683 HP Mini 5103 (18:04, using the same dual-core Atom N550 processor), the $499 Asus Eee PC 1215N (15:38), and the $469 Gateway LT3201u (17:56). Here, the dual-core processor showed its worth. (This was not surprising, seeing as the WME test, unlike our iTunes test, takes advantage of multiple cores.) Likewise, on our Cinebench 10 benchmark test, which is a measure of CPU performance that taxes all available cores of the CPU, the Aspire delivered a score of 1,386. That's strong, as the category average is just 863.
The same asset helped the Aspire One D255 do well on our multitasking test. This test involves converting our same test video in WME while running a demanding virus scan using Windows Defender. The Aspire One finished this task in a time of 22:20, which was much faster than the Gateway LT2120u's time of 31:33 and the category average of 32:45.
The integrated Intel graphics processor used in this machine, the GMA 3150, produced merely average graphics scores for a netbook (which is to say, weak ones in a big-picture sense). On our 3DMark06 benchmark test, the Aspire One pumped out a score of 152 at its native resolution (1,024x600). That compares closely with the Gateway LT2120u's 155 or the HP Mini 100e's 158. (We couldn't run the test at 1,024x768, as we normally do, because the Aspire One doesn't support that resolution.) Either way, what these numbers tell us: Don't expect to use this machine for major gaming, by any stretch.
As noted earlier on, you can get this Aspire One model with a three-cell or a six-cell battery like Acer BTP-73E1 Battery, Acer BATCL50L Battery, Acer TravelMate 290 Battery, Acer TravelMate 4000 Battery, Acer TravelMate 2300 Battery, Acer Aspire 1680 Battery, Acer Aspire 1410 Battery, Acer TravelMate 4500 Battery, Acer LCBTP03003 Battery, rated for four or eight hours of runtime, respectively. We tested the six-cell version. Perhaps the battery could have gotten something approaching eight hours under normal use, but our battery-rundown test is a more extreme challenge, forcing the tested computer to stream full-screen video via its Wi-Fi connection until it drops. This is a worst-case battery scenario, and the Aspire One lasted for 3 hours and 51 minutes under this trial. That’s just a little under the category average of 4:07. By comparison, the Gateway LT2120u endured for an exceptional 5:24.
Loaded onto the 250GB hard drive is Windows 7 Starter Edition, and you won't be surprised that the included software is on the basic side. When we first powered the netbook on and saw desktop icons for Netflix and the New York Times Reader, we thought there might be an effort here to deliver popular content to buyers. But those were actually just sponsored ads. (Netflix was a link, and the Times Reader is a free download.) As for actual software, you get Microsoft Office Starter 2010 (a full, free version that’s funded via ads). It includes Microsoft Word and Excel, which is plenty good for many users. You'll also get a few Acer utilities, such as Acer eRecovery Management and Acer ePower Management. Other apps include eSobi (a multi-pane news reader that doesn’t work well on a small screen), Windows Live Essentials, Skype, and a trial of McAfee Internet Security Suite 2009.
The Acer Aspire One D255 might be a good choice for frequent fliers, as it comes with the company's one-year international traveler's limited warranty. That means you can get service in any country in which Acer has a repair facility. (You can find more on the warranty on Acer's site.) The company also offers a two-year extended warranty for $99, or a three-year total protection bundle for $199.
For bargain shoppers, the $349 version of the Aspire One D255 is a decent buy. You'll get the low price and high portability you crave, while getting a small boost from the dual-core processor. You also get a bright screen, which we thoroughly appreciated. We wouldn't try to do any highly demanding work on this—or any—netbook, but battery life aside, this machine, along with the Gateway LT3201u, is one of the top-performing netbooks available south of $500.
