Acer Aspire One AO722-BZ454 11.6-Inch HD Netbook (Espresso Black)
- AMD C-Series Processor C-50(1.0GHz, 1MB L2 cache)
- 2GB DDR3 Single-Channel Memory
- 250GB SATA Hard Drive
- 11.6? HD Widescreen CineCrystal? LED-backlit Show, ATI Radeon? HD 6250 Graphics
- Windows® 7 Home Premium
Acer AO722-BZ454 comes with these high level Specs. AMD C-Series Processor C-50, Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit), 11.6″ HD WXGA LED-backlit Show, AMD A50M Fusion Chipset, ATI Radeon HD 6250 Graphics, 2048MB DDR3 Memory, 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM), Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, Built-In 0.3MP Webcam, 3 – USB 2.0 Ports, HDMI, 6-cell Li-ion Battery (4400 mAh), Up to 7-hours Battery Life, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, 3.21 lbs. | 1.46 kg (system unit onl
List Price: $ 329.99
Price: $ 298.98
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Powerful small laptop that can even run Photoshop CS5 64bit,
UPDATE 8/23/11: For details on how to upgrade this netbook, check out the comments posted below. Just click ‘Comments (#)’ at the bottom of this review. The further you read into the comments thread the more in depth the questions get. Feel free to read through and post any questions that have not already been answered. If you have any new tips or tricks others might benefit from, please contribute. Thanks so much!
REVIEW: I was looking for an 11″-13″ small laptop or netbook that could web surf, blog, and run MS Office. I also wanted to be able to handle basic, on-the-glide photo editing & design using Adobe CS5. Lastly, I needed something that could run for at least 6 hours on battery and had a full-size keyboard. Going with the Acer Aspire One 722 was a excellent choice price wise and provided a power efficient option that met my needs while on the road. Hopefully, you find this review helpful.
After testing it without any upgrades for a week, it was way quicker than the Atom netbooks I’ve used in the past and quicker than my ancient 11.6″ Acer AS1410 Core2 Solo from last year. But, I wanted a bit more grunt power and speed. Upgrading the hard drive and memory seemed like a excellent choice, and it has turned this entry level PC into something on par with most mid-range desktops. Here are the upgrades I made:
* Crucial C300 2.5″ 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
* G.SKILL 4GB 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3-1333 PC3-10600 Unbuffered Non-ECC
Being that this is a review for the Acer Aspire One 722, it’s only honest to give you the PROS and CONS without factoring in the upgrades.
PROS:
* Incredible keyboard – Huge buttons, nice click and very small flex. Buttons are where they should be.
* Dedicated graphics – Video streams via YouTube and Hulu in HD without stuttering. 1366×768 resolution means I can run Photoshop natively. 256MB of dedicated graphics memory, means I can flip through web pages without waiting for it to catch up.
* Battery life – With the original hard drive, I was getting 4.5-5 hours on the “balanced” power setting. 7 hours on “power saver”
* Windows 7 64bit with an AMD C-50 processor
* Brand name – This is my 4th Acer PC. There are a lot of fantastic options out there, but IMHO Acer is the best bang for the buck.
* Charger cord – Something I’ve grown to appreciate is how compact the charger cord is. It is only one cord, as opposed to the usual two part cord included with most laptops. It’s a whopping 8 feet long and comes with a Velcro strip pre-attached to neatly store the coiled cord. The charging block is at the plug-in end. Also, the prongs can be rotated 90 degrees so it doesn’t block any more of a powerstrip or outlet than it has too. Nice job!
* Webcam – Very clear webcam. It’s only a 0.3 MegaPixel, but when I’m traveling my misses says it’s crystal clear on Skype.
CONS:
* Glossy black lid – Not a deal breaker, just a matter of preference. Wish it was matte. I do like the embedded ripple. Kind of groovy.
* BEEP – If you plug-in or unplug the power cord while the netbook is ON, the computer lets out a loud beep – just loud enough to make you flinch. It reminds me of my very first PC from 20 years ago. This can be disabled in Control Panel > Device Manager > click on the “View” menu at the top > click “Show Hidden Devices” > click the + sign next to “Non-Plug and Play Devices” from the list of devices > double click “Beep” > go to the “Driver” tab > choose “Disabled” in the Startup drop down menu.
* No Bluetooth – Using a mini USB Bluetooth adapter to resolve that.
* Trackpad size – You can kind of expect this on a laptop this small. I prefer a wireless mouse anyways. Other than size, the pad feels perfect and is very responsive. The trackpad buttons are the best I’ve ever used.
* Linux users – As of 6/14/11, the graphics card, web cam, and wifi drivers are buggy on Linux. I tested Ubuntu 10.04, 11.04, Mint 11 and Joli 1.2 and was experiencing system freezes and resolution issues.
AFTER UPGRADING THE MEMORY AND HARD DRIVE:
* Boot time – Before the upgrade: 1 minute 35 seconds. After the upgrade: 32 seconds.
* Battery life – I get about 5.5-6 hours with the power management setting on “balanced”. 8+ hours on “power saver”.
* Photoshop CS5 64bit – Opens in 7 seconds now as opposed to 16 seconds previously.
* Multitasking – I’m able to multitask a couple web pages, streaming music, Outlook, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Bridge and Camera Raw simultaneously without a prolonged hourglass. That’s excellent enough for me.
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|Incredible small machine,
I’ve had this netbook about a month now. I spent a couple of weeks looking up different netbooks to do basic stuff like handle Adobe Flash on the web, type a paper, but most importantly, have HDMI output to play 1080p videos. My budget was in the $300 range and this was the perfect choice after taking everything into consideration.
The netbook itself is very thin and light and has a excellent keyboard that is a small larger than your typical one on a 10″ netbook. It has a 250GB HDD, standard webcam, mic, and card reader. Another thing I should mention is that it has two speakers on the bottom (left & right) and is louder than other Acer netbooks I’ve had that only have one speaker.
I wiped the HDD when I got it and installed Win7 Ultimate x64. I liked that it came with 2GB RAM as most netbooks in this price range only come with 1GB, but even then, this netbook runs even better when you upgrade to 4GB RAM. The CPU may run at 1GHz, but don’t be fooled as it handles well, has fantastic benchmarks, and is comparable to other netbooks I’ve had with Intel Atom CPUs that ran at up to 1.66GHz. That’s mostly because it has the killer ATI Radeon HD 6250 video card that can play any video or flash game I throw at it with no hogging up a lot of the CPU (be sure to install proper codecs like k-lite).
The screen is a excellent size at 11.6″ (not too huge, not too small, I reckon) and is really bright and vivid with 720p resolution (1366×768) so you don’t have to deal with cramped up desktops and web surfing like on other netbooks. It outputs 1080p video perfectly and I am able to watch a show or movie on my TV via HDMI output and be surfing the web or be typing a document at the same time with no noticeable lag. I also like the battery life on this thing: ~7-8hrs on power saver with low brightness.
Something else I should mention is that this netbook does not run hot and will not burn your lap or hand. It has a vent on the left side, and is the only spot that may occasionally only get warm, even when I’m using it outside in 100F+ weather.
Yes, it beeps when you plug or unplug the charger, but that may be considered useful to some people and is easily muted like other reviewers have mentioned. As for ripple design on the cover, I thought it looked cool and that it was clean it wasn’t just another black cover like other netbooks I’ve owned and seen. Even when I’ve gone out with it, I’ve had several friends comment on how much they liked the design (as well as the netbook as a whole). Overall, this is the best netbook with HDMI I have seen in this price range.
Pros:
- Thin & light
- Cool cover
- Webcam & mic (though pretty standard nowadays)
- Card reader
- Nice and large keyboard
- 2GB RAM (not 1GB)
- ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics can play any video or flash
- 1080p HDMI output
- 11.6″ screen w/ 720p resolution
- 7-8hr battery
- Doesn’t run hot
- 2 speakers
Cons:
- 2GB RAM (upgrade to 4GB)
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|Nice small Netbook,
I bought this from another website, but I wanted to leave a comment on here specially since the netbook seems to be getting hammered on here for reason that make no sense.
1) Cosmetic: The appearance is really kind of nice. The ripple effect on the case is really quite attractive, all my friends who have seen it(I have the espresso black) really thought it was fascinating to look at versus the standard flat black cover most netbooks have. My only issue is the slick shiny plastic they use is somewhat of a finger print magnet, but nothing a simply cloth wiped crossed once or twice wont fix. It is also extremely light and simple to carry will fit in most backpacks and slingbags with ease.
2.) Functionality: It comes with Windows 7 64bit so pretty much it is a fully functional small laptop, it will run just about any movie or YouTube out there, currently I have been watching HBOGO and other movies on it. I cannot speak of it for gaming even though it is DX11 compliant, I have not installed any games on it since that was not the reason I bought it. My only issue so far is the 2 Gigs of ram that it comes with installed. Acer installed Windows 7 64bit which will allows the Operating system to recognize more then 3.5 gigs of rams at one time. That being said, I’m not sure why Acer did not just install a 4gig stick of ram from the factory. I realize this might have raised the price by $20 to $30, but imho it would have been worth it.
Overall a really fantastic netbook for the price, I would have loved the extra ram and would have really loved for Acer to release a netbook with the C-350 APU chip instead, but for the most part this will handle pretty much anything I need at the moment and is comparable to most 2-3 yr ancient laptops that you might have now.
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