Just a couple of months ago, Acer launched the first 10-inch version of the Aspire One Netbooks, the AOD150. In Feb it cost $350, but it had its limitations: a terrible touch pad, reasonably bulky size because of a six-cell battery, and a keyboard that was positively cramped compared with the competition.

The AOD250 weighs less and is thinner than the AOD150 since it has a three-cell battery now, instead of six. The specs on processor, hard drive, and RAM are identical, but the new Aspire One’s more compact design makes it feel a bit less like a budget product.

Although it’s a decent-looking netbook, it doesn’t especially stand out as groundbreaking in any way, unlike what Asus did with the stylish new “Seashell” Eee PC 1008HA. On the other hand, the Seashell costs $429, while the AOD250 is $130 cheaper. That’s a huge difference in a low-cost product.

The keyboard feels comfortable to type on, and although it has a pair of full Shift keys (no ugly right-side compression), it’s still far from full size. As a result, the typing experience is more cramped than working on an HP Mini 110 or a Samsung N120. The keyboard could have gone fully edge-to-edge, and in the future we really hope Acer makes this shift. The touch pad is unquestionably an improvement: while it’s still tiny and inset, the bottom rocker button is much more clicky than before.

The 10.1-inch wide-screen LED-backlit LCD offers a 1,024×600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for a screen this size. Colors are sharp, and text and icons are crisp.

The stereo speakers, which are embedded somewhere within the Netbook (upon examination we still couldn’t find where the sound was coming from), are weak, both in volume and sound quality. While it’s not surprising for a Netbook, headphones are almost a must.

The Acer 1810T is the European name of the 11.6″ Timeline laptop. In the United States this system is called 1410. Acer previously released the 751 which was a netbook in a very similar frame. This time Acer has chosen the Intel CULV platform, leading to more powerful components.

Product Specifications

• CPU: Intel SU3500 Core 2 Solo 1.4GHz
• Screen: 11.6″ WLED 1366*768 AUOptronics AUO205C
• Hard drive: WD16000BEVT 160GB 2.5″ SATA
• Ethernet: Atheros AR 8131 gigabit
• Wireless: Intel Wifi 5100
• Chipset: Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset
• Graphics: Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset
• Operating System: Vista Home Premium or Genuine Windows XP
• Battery: 5600 mAh 6 cell Lithium-Ion
• Weight: 1.30 kg

Design and Quality

The system is amazingly thin. Acer says it’s 22.1mm at it’s thinnest and 30mm at it’s thickest. Especially the bottom half without the screen looks exceptionally thin. If you’ve had the Acer 751 in your hands you know what I mean.

The system feels very sturdy. There’s no flex in the palm wrest area. The screen is more flexible, but this shouldn’t be any problem. Pressing down on the keyboard I notice it bends a little bit down. Once again this shouldn’t be any problem during normal use.

The lid on the screen is made of entirely glossy material. It easily picks up finger prints so be ready to clean it often. Or walk around with a dirty notebook.

The palm wrest area looked a bit like steel. Actually it is plastic that has been painted. It looks classy though and it’s an improvement over the Acer 751.

Another large improvement over the 751 is that the battery sits entirely flush. It doesn’t stick out on the back or bottom. Overall I think Acer has done a great job on the design. It easily beats the other Timeline models. I’ll be happy to take this laptop on my trips to the coffee shop.

Overall Performance and Video Playback

The first thing I did was uninstalling some of the bloatware. Especially Mcafee Antivirus is something I do not want on my system. After removing a couple of more unwanted applications I tested the system. It felt very snappy to me. Using the 1810T as a desktop, browsing with 20 tabs and playing some music in the background there was never a hick up. Hard drive performance was good, as applications and windows opened quickly.

Booting the system went surprisingly fast. It took only 36 seconds from pressing the power button until the welcome screen appeared. The first 6 seconds of those 36 was for the BIOS. At 41 seconds the desktop appeared.

I tested several video clips. I’m not entirely happy with the video playback so far. Playing the 1080p wmv trailer of ‘Rules of Attraction’ caused a 100% CPU load at times, but the movie seemed smooth.

Playing back Lady Gaga’s Poker Face from Youtube went smooth, untill I pressed HD. CPU load was at 100% and frames started skipping. The SU3500 doesn’t have enough muscle power to play this clip.

I also tested some H264 1080 clips with several codecs. Best results were gotten using Cyberlink Power DVD codec. The 1080p trailer of ‘I Am Legend’ played smooth but CPU load was often at 100%. This was surprising for me because I have gotten better results with the Acer 751 with XP. I have some evidence that this might be caused by Vista, so I’m looking forward to install Windows 7 or XP in this machine in the future.

Keyboard and TouchPad

The keyboard on the 1410 is something to get used to. Acer has chosen a design that looks a bit like a chiclet keyboard, but there are gaps in between of the keys. I wonder if dirt will fall in between of the keys and how it will be cleaned. Time will tell. The size of the keyboard is 100%, that’s another large advantage this 1410T (or1810T) has over almost every netbook. The keys itself are flat and have a slight texture giving quite a comfortable feel without being slippery. They keys have a decent amount of feedback. All strokes are registered and take little effort.

There is a little bit of keyboard flex but far less than other notebooks like Dell Studio 1555. After using the keyboard for a while I’m starting to like it a lot.

The touchpad is a Synaptics with support for multi finger gestures. It works accurate and responsive. Sometimes even to responsive as unwanted touches are easily registered. Changing the sensitivity fixed that.

One gripe about the touchpad is that the edges are quite hard to notice. I’ve been mistaking quit e a few times, I wonder if I will get used to it.

Acer 1410 Unboxing Videos