Acer Aspire One Netbook: Dual Core Processor

Imagine being a netbook vendor in the Age of the Tablet. Housen Maratouk discusses Acer's strategy for its Aspire One netbooks, a unit that has long been considered a top contender in the netbook sector.

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Is there still a place for netbooks in what's starting to seem like a tablet-mad world? Acer thinks so. At a time when the Apple iPad is at the top of so many shopping lists and product after product is being evaluated as a potential "iPad-killer," Acer is betting on enough prospective buyers still looking for the more notebook-like experience, but with the smaller size and price tag, that a netbook offers. And so it's kept right on refreshing its netbook line, with a recent example being the unit we're looking at today: the Aspire One D255.

With the D255, Acer has upped the ante by going with the Intel Atom N550, a dual-core processor that is clocked at 1.5GHz. And with a price tag of $329, it's still priced around where units sporting single-core processors had recently been. But do more cores translate into more performance and better value? Let's take a look and find out.

Getting the Aspire One up and running takes little more than moments. Just plug the system in to get that battery charging, start it up, and go through the basic Windows setup screens. Just be careful that you don't misplace the type A plug that clips onto the AC adapter.

Like other 10.1-inch netbooks, the D255 is nice and light, weighing just 2.8 pounds with the included 6-cell battery. That battery, according to Acer, will power the netbook for up to eight hours. And while we never managed to hit that mark, we did get an impressive five hours of mixed use, alternating between running benchmarks, streaming video, installing software and browsing the Web.

Read the rest at Hardware Central.