Acer Aspire One

simp said:
The Mall at Reds? Not being from Pta, which shop, in which mall, and where the *(&@^)@&$^ is Reds ?
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The mall's name is "The Mall @ Reds".

It's at the corner of Hendrik Verwoerd and Rooihuiskraal in Centurion.

It's at Incredible Connection. A new one has opened up at The Mall @ Reds and this is part of their opening specials.
 
Terencek said:
For anyone prepared to do the work, you can have the best of all possible worlds on the very cheapest entry-level Acer Aspire One (8GB SSD) for anywhere between R2K and R3K depending on the reseller. Mosey over to the best forum for AAO aficionados (http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/) and you'll find all the instructions for the interesting challenge of converting it to XP, including a few basic rules like not using the NTFS file system.

Once converted it will indeed run like the proverbial dog -- but then you need to spend some time applying the various tweaks mentioned in that forum, most importantly installing a wonderful little freebie caching app called FlashPoint and perhaps another (Russian!) one called eBoostr (similar to Vista's ReadyBoost) which is a full-function freebie in its four-hours-per-session demo version. Then turn off Prefetch and run a few other little tweaks and at the end for just a couple of grand or so you will have a distinctly un-shabby little workhorse which could even, at a pinch with a USB keyboard and an external monitor, serve as an everyday XP machine. Five hundred rand or so adds extra storage (another 8GB in an SD card) and another GB of RAM (though it is admittedly quite a technical challenge to install the RAM). If you don't mind all that, or even think it's a fun challenge as so many on that forum obviously do, the Acer is a little gem! Doubling the price just to get a pre-installed XP and a more power-hungry and less robust 'real' hard-drive really is a nonsense!
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XP might be nonsense but having the 120gb HDD sure isnt.

@sn3rd - if you've got windows 7 you could also install that though I would suggest some more ram. The upgrade is fun if you dont mind throwing your warranty out of the window. :)

If you want to trick out linpus a bit - http://jorge.ulver.no/2008/08/06/acer-aspire-one-tips-and-tricks/

And skype - http://kengell.blogspot.com/2008/09/acer-aspire-one-painless-skype-install.html
 
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bwana said:
XP might be nonsense but having the 120gb HDD sure isnt.

@sn3rd - if you've got windows 7 you could also install that though I would suggest some more ram. The upgrade is fun if you dont mind throwing your warranty out of the window. :)

If you want to trick out linpus a bit - http://jorge.ulver.no/2008/08/06/acer-aspire-one-tips-and-tricks/

And skype - http://kengell.blogspot.com/2008/09/acer-aspire-one-painless-skype-install.html
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Hehe... Used Linpus for about 30seconds before breaking out my .iso and unetbootin to install Ubuntu :p

But thanks, that's quite a cool link; will get gf to read the link (she bought one too) ;)
 
sn3rd said:
The mall's name is "The Mall @ Reds".

It's at the corner of Hendrik Verwoerd and Rooihuiskraal in Centurion.

It's at Incredible Connection. A new one has opened up at The Mall @ Reds and this is part of their opening specials.
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Much appreciated - any idea what their stock situation is like, and when pricing is valid to?
 
4 days only, started yesterday. So I guess until Sunday.

The advertised one is a white one, but they're finished. They only had blue ones left, but seemed like they had quite a lot. I don't think stock is a problem.
 
@ sn3rd : my only concern is about the horrible writing speeds reported for the SSD - what is your experience in general use - is it an issue with everyday tasks?
 
Been using it a lot so far today. Haven't experienced poor performance at all. In fact, I'm more than satisfied. Haven't done any heavy copying etc yet. Will see how it goes tomorrow

Ubuntu successfully installed, everything I've tried is working (wifi just needed a small tweak, but nothing major).

Running full compiz fusion (for the Windows guys, think Aero Glass, then think BETTER ;) ).

Dual PPPoE connections set up.

Next up is media.

Apparently there are also a whole bunch of optimisations I can apply to improve write performance. Will see if I even bother (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).
 
Dammm - thought it was only tomorrow! And I bought a 2nd hand Apple PowerBook G4 today in any case - there goes my budget!
 
Gee, let's compare... Powerbook vs AAO. No comparison, really. Unless you need to fit it in your pocket :p
 
sn3rd said:
Lol... There always has to be one :p
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Truth be told I'm a mac guy and if Apple did a netbook I'd be right on it.

I'm downloading the netbook version of 9.0.4 which will hopefully replace my 8.10 installation but I'm not sure what the future holds for the Windows 7 I'm currently running. I don't think I could bring myself to buy a full copy of windows. :o
 
Bwana maybe not previous versions but windows 7 is something special i think, forget me being somewhat a windows fanboy i just think microsoft have something very special with windows 7 and while xp and vista i thought where decent i think windows 7 is mind blowing compared to anything they released before.

I know i will buy windows 7 ultimate just because it is good and while i own windows xp home and vista basic i would never have bought the more expensive options but damn windows 7 is awesome :). You must see it on my dell 8gb ssd, 1gb ram and it runs faster than the xp that was installed and looks amazing.
 
Window 7 on my aao is okay'ish. I have to reboot it everytime it sleeps which is a pain but I put up with it because it's beta and all. I wouldn't pay for that pleasure though.
 
sn3rd said:
The basic one, for R1 999-00 @ The Mall @ Reds

/me runs
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Thanks for the heads-up on this on SN3RD, I just got back from IC @ the Reds, with 1 x Aspire One in hand.

I am HUGELY impressed by the performance of the little machine running on Linux. This is the first time I ever used Linux and it is certainly the right OS for this machine compared to my sis' AspireOne with XP Home.

Cheers R
 
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