Hi, All,
I was planning to buy an Acer Aspire One 532g (the new one, with HDMI output), but I have read that it is delayed or cancelled, due to labour problems in the far east, and driver problems, etc... and it may not be on sale until next year. So, I am back to square one, and need an alternative fairly soon.
I have read the post entitled "If You Are Looking for a New Laptop, Read This First", and answered the questions as follows:-
1. Budget: Up to £500-00 (GB pounds)
2. Screen: Small - up to 11 inches or possibly 12 inches. Small size and light weight are VERY important for this purchase. I already have a "big" laptop.
3. Brands: Any good quality brand. Most important is reliability, durability for back-packing, and ease of upgrades, driver availability, installing bigger HD or SSHD.
4. Mobility: For back-packing and travelling light. Pref. at least 5 hours battery life. I need a SMALL, SMALL, power brick. Low weight is vital.
5. Durability: Semi-durable. Suitable for pack-packing and air-travel as carry-on luggage. May get used outdoors, hiking, hotel lobby, airport.
6. Multitasking: Not much multi-tasking. Generally it will used for one thing at as time.
7. Gaming: Regularly play Call of Duty UO (2003 vintage), but would like options to play COD 4 and COD 5, if possible.
8. Calculations: Greatest proccessing load will be gaming, or streaming 1080p HD video over a LAN. (not both at the same time!)
9. Storage: Not much needed. Most storage is on the LANs I connect to. No big documents or video media. Would like the option to install a solid state HD.
10. Optical Media: Not vital, but a DVD burner would be nice. The Acer 532g has no optical drive anyway, so I was planning on living without one.
11. Operating System: Preferably XP Pro, or W7 downgradeable to XP Pro. Driver availability is important. NO VISTA !!! EVER !!!
12. Location: Britain.
I am particularly interested in being able to stream HD 1080p video to an external monitor or TV via HDMI, (Acer Aspire 532g with HDMI was reviewed favourably for this, in particular) , plus I need a LOT of USB ports for my accessories when gaming (USB head-phones, keypad, mouse, other keyboard interface, etc), so 4 USB ports, or ones capable of driving un-powered USB splitter hubs.
I play COD UO, but would like to play more modern games, if possible, lilke COD 4 and COD 5 WAW, Americas Army 3, but I can forget the newer games if there are no PCs that fit my criteria, above.
I have an Acer Revo 3310 dual core, and a Toshiba Satellite 205. When testing with 3DMark06, they score 1442 and 4500 respectively. If anyone can recommend a suitable small format netbook/laptop, please state known, (or estimated) benchmark test values for 3DMark06, (if you are able) so that I can "guestimate" the machine's performance.
I was leaning towards the netbook (Acer Aspire One 532g), due to it's very small size, weight and battery life. I have read that small notebooks are now hardly any bigger than the 532g netbook, but with better CPU, graphics and a DVD drive, so I am open to any suggestions, but bear in mind that my "starting point" was the Acer 532g.
All recommendations would be wecomed.
Cheers,
Rob.
