I’ve had my EEE PC 701 for about 6 months now, and last week, we bought Mandi an Acer Aspire One for her to work on.  I decided to do a bit of a comparison to see what had improved in the intervening time.

The Aspire One is superior in many respects: it has a larger screen, larger hard drive, larger keyboard (more on that later) and a faster processor.  The battery life is similar, which is good, given the mechanical hard drive (as opposed to the EEE’s solid state drive) and larger, brighter screen.  Straight specs:

There are a couple downsides to the Aspire.  First, it’s a fingerprint magnet – the shiny, shiny case attracts finger oil like flies on meat.  The screen is also shiny, making reading in bright light more difficult than on the EEEpc’s matte finish (on the plus side, the wider resolution means much less side-to-side scrolling compared to the EEE).  The keyboard, although larger, is only available in Canada in an international configuration, which moves some familiar keys around, rendering touch-typing a mite more difficult.

Also the OS that ships with the system is, to be blunt, a turd.  Compared to the EEE’s well-designed Xandros-based desktop, the Acer’s light version of Linpus (what’s with the name?) just doesn’t cut it.  While the EEE’s interface looks simple, it is underscored by the power of a full operating system.  The same cannot be said for the Aspire, which lacks many basic features of a beginner’s Linux OS (Windows network access, for one).  I replaced it with XP, which boots a little slower, but has the advantage of familiarity.  With the 120GB hard drive in place, it’s not the problem to install a full version of XP that it would be on the EEE’s microscopic 4GB.

One other minor quibble with the Aspire is the placement of the mouse buttons.  In order to shorten the depth of the machine, Acer opted to put the buttons on either side of the trackpad, making mousing somewhat awkward.

Finally, the Aspire has the EEE beat all hollow on price.  The EEEpc I purchased 6 months ago is still going for $400, whereas the Aspire can be found for $330.  At $70 cheaper, you can afford an extra license for XP, bringing it up to the full power of a much larger machine.

All in all, the Aspire is a better purchase if you’re willing to put up with the keyboard awkwardness and to replace the OS.  Asus is going to have to step up its game if it wants to stay competitive in the market it created.

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