Acer Aspire One 751

The Acer Aspire One 751 is the first 11.6 inch format netbook (screen definition of 1366x768 pixels) to come through editorial. With an Intel Atom Z520 processor, it aims at being an ever-present do-it-all tool designed for mobile productivity. Let’s see what this HD Ready panel brings to the table in practice.

Handling, design and build

Blue Sapphire in colour, the product casing also exists in Diamond Black, Ruby Red and White Silk (Acer’s own naming). Mostly gloss, it gives a better impression of solidity on the base than it does around the black glossy screen.


The keyboard keys are very wide and much more comfortable than we would have expected from a product of this type. Only the direction arrows, at the bottom on the right, have been resized and take up half the space you’d expect. The keys are thin and you might find your nails getting caught in between them. The touch pad is wide and not tall. It is glossy on the surface (glassy), which would not have been our preference when it comes to ease of use, especially if there is any moisture on your fingers. It is positioned above a click bar that is in the same colour as the casing. The left and right clicks make a clicking sound and the right side of the bar was loose on the model that was lent to us for testing.

The noise levels are very low overall. You have to put your ear right up to the laptop to hear anything, even when demands are being placed on the CPU – this is a good point.

The webcam satisfied us overall. The colours it gives are relatively natural, with good brightness management. You should avoid very bright light sources all the same as they tend to burn the image. The audio is pretty average, rather echoey. You’ll need to raise your voice to be heard properly.

On the side of the machine you’ll find: 3 USBs, 2 mini Jacks, 1 VGA, 1 RJ45 and 1 memory card reader. This is the very minimum required. A 3G module is also available as an option.

Under the computer, three panels give access to the hard drive, the RAM (made by Nanya) and the Wifi module.

RJ45	2 USBs, 2 mini Jacks
SD, USB	VGA

Processor Power

The Intel Atom Z520 processor is not the fastest of the Atoms, far from it. It is one of the bottom netbook processors that are already a way down on standard laptop processors. On our test index, it scores a 14. The Asus 1008HA (CPU Atom N280) scores 20 and the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi 3650 (CPU Intel T9400) gets an index of 100. You’ll need to be patient if you go with this model. Is this problematic? If you’re going to use it to edit video the answer is yes. If it’s just for consulting emails and working with text docs, then not really.

The Intel graphics chipset has been announced with the capacity to decode heavy HD files such as H.264, MPEG2 and 4. In practice we didn’t manage to play this type of film. In spite of software to accelerate video via the graphics chip (Power DVD 9) and updating drivers, there’s a lack of fluidity. Make do with SD (DVD) files.

Gaming

The graphics chip is much too small for gaming. You can forget the vast majority of 3D games.

Audio

This model is surprising. Everything is the other way round than on other netbooks; good speakers but a poor headphones out. The speakers are among the least worst we’ve heard on any netbook, with very listenable audio quality. The same can’t really be said for the headphones out; there’s a hiss and interference. We have heard worse however.

Battery life and portability

We tested the high capacity version of the Aspire One 751 battery. It sticks quite a way out the back of the machine and has rubber wheels, which raises the back is slightly. With this large battery, battery life goes up to 5h33 when playing video (screen at 100 cd/m², Wi-Fi disactivated and headphones plugged in). This really is great and puts it near the top in terms of netbooks. To get any better, you’d need to go for the Toshiba NB200: 6h10. To do much better go for the MSI Wind U115: 9h52.