This Acer Aspire One D250 certainly qualifies as a best netbook because it has it all, from the very basics to more advanced in-built features. It is very lightweight and has a good strong feel to it. It also has an excellent keyboard, superb WIFI and three USB ports which make a huge difference if you are running an external drive or have attached an external mouse.
The battery life is less in practice than Acer claim, but the performance is superb and we found that it was able to run programs like Adobe Premiere without any problems, and that is saying something. To our surprise, it even managed to run certain games with its built-in graphics card although the detail was somewhat lacking.
On the negative side, this netbook doesn’t have a CD-ROM drive, and while it isn’t necessary, you can’t even play a CD while you are working. Sure, you can copy files onto another pc and use a flash drive to install software, but it is something a purchaser should be aware of prior to buying.
The only other serious drawback for us was that the trackpad; it is really small, and although it is a multi-gesture device just like the MacBook Air uses, it’s very fiddly in use.
Anyone wishing to use this machine for business (or even school or college projects that involve a lot of selection and right-clicking) would be well advised to use an external mouse to increase their efficiency and maintain their sanity.
Our version was shipped with Windows XP, which worked first time out the box, and was easy to set up, but we understand that some suppliers are now using Windows 7 Home edition.
The good connection to our wireless network makes it perfect for internet access but it is tempting to use it for everything else as it is so quick and responsive.
The screen is clear and bright, making it great for viewing (and editing) photos, and the excellent Internet connection means that it is easy to upload them to Flickr or anywhere else for that matter.