Acer Aspire One 721-3574

It performs better and is more comfortable to use than a typical HP Compaq 6715B Battery netbook, but this 11.6-inch machine's poor battery life is a big strike against it.

For just a little more than the cost of an Atom-powered netbook, the Acer Aspire One 721-3574 ($429) sports a larger 11.6-inch display, a more comfortable keyboard, and a faster AMD Athlon II Neo processor

paired with ATI graphics for HD video sony battery playback. This system is also a full $170 less than a nearly identical version powered by an Intel processor. So what's not to like? The battery life is well below average, making this ultraportable not very mobile. Does the 721 have enough else going for it to overlook this one glaring weakness?

Design

Easily one of the best-looking notebooks we've seen sony vgp-bps13/b for less than $450, the Aspire One 721 measures just 1 to 1.1 inches thick and weighs Sony VGP-BPS9/S Battery a mere 2.8 pounds. We especially like the mesh black textured lid (no fingerprint smudges), which has a subtle cross-hatch pattern. The inside of the machine has a sleek gunmetal gray strip underneath the black keyboard, and the power button is made to look like spun metal. A lighter gray strip wraps around the bottom of the 721, adding to the sophisticated aesthetic.

The left side of this ultraportable houses a VGA port, power jack, HDMI, and USB. A Ethernet port, lock slot, Sony VGP-BPS9/B Battery two more USB ports, mic and headphone jacks, and a 5-in-1 memory card reader can be found on the other side.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Like other Acer notebooks, this one sports a full-size FineTip Sony VGP-BPS10 keyboard that isolates the keys slightly. Though some may find that the keys are positioned too close together, we didn't mind. During our typing sessions the keyboard offered strong tactile feedback, and we appreciated the large right Shift key and Enter key. The shrunken arrow keys were easy to locate without looking.

We'd like to see Acer follow the lead of other manufacturers and turn the function key shortcuts into direct action keys in the top row. For example, to raise the Dell GD761 Battery volume, you have to press Fn + Up Arrow, when it should just be a dedicated button.

Two vertical lines separate the relatively small touchpad from the rest of the deck. The surface had only Toshiba PA3534U-1BRS minor friction, but we found that we had to make more movements to direct the cursor due to the limited surface area. The dedicated touchpad buttons were crisp and easy to activate.

Heat

After streaming Hulu for 15 mintues, the 721 remained fairly cool, Acer Aspire One Battery reaching 91 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad, and 92 and 95 degrees, respectively, between the G and H keys, and 95 degrees underneath. The only part of the machine that got uncomfortable was near the vent, which registered 106 degrees.

Display, Audio, and Webcam

The Aspire One 721's display is one of the better screens we've seen in this size, an 11.6-inch panel with 1366 x 768 resolution. The picture was bright and acer aspire 9800 battery crisp when surfing the web, and an HD trailer of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows exhibited an impressive level good battery of detail, right down to the dark circles under Harry's eyes and his stubble.

Audio quality varied based on how we used the system. The twin speakers underneath the front lip of the chassis delivered plenty of volume when we listened to Green Day's "When I Come Around" on Slacker, but the sound became muffled when we used the 721 in our lap.

We weren't impressed with the 1.3-megapixel webcam on this laptop. During a Skype call battery our friend said we looked blocky and a bit blurry, though audio came through clearly.