Customer Reviews

Acer AO532h-2223 10.1-Inch Matrix Silver Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(25)

 

 

October 2010 update:

The review is now woefully out of date.

Please look instead at the just-released Aspire Atom Dual Core Acer Aspire One AOD255-1549 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black which has a dual core instead of single core Atom processor. Same great battery life, but much better performance. It's slightly more expensive (at least during the introduction, expect prices to drop in 3 months) but should handle Hulu much better (less stuttering/higher resolution/bigger window size). Or if you don't mind a smaller Hulu window/lower resolution, the N450 single core version is an updated bargain - Acer Aspire One AOD255-2509 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black. For only $10 more, the "269" model has a much more useful 250 gb hard drive - Acer Aspire One AOD255-2691 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black. I recommend spending that extra $10 for the bigger hard drive. I store my music and video collection on my netbook, use it for travel, and quickly fill up the hard drive - 160 gb isn't enough for me anymore.

Also if video is your top priority, more than battery life, the recent Acers with the AMD Athlon II Neo chip and Radeon graphics are reportedly much, much better in terms of performande, but batter life drops to 3-4 hours (Acer may be winding this model down already precisely for this reason) - Acer Aspire AO521-3782 10.1-Inch Netbook (Antique Brass). I recommend searching for "netbook AMD Neo" to see what's available with this new generation AMD chip before you buy.

Please read any review of computers (especially in the rapidly evolving netbook market) more than 3 months old with a grain of salt. Also you owe it to yourself to investigate the Apple iPad, many potential netbook purchasers are buying them instead. A comparison of the two is beyond the scope of this product review, but you need to be aware of this alternative.

_________________________original review below, if you buy one used at a great price:

I deleted my first review which knocked this new netbook from Acer with a 3 Star review, for failing to accept a 2gb memory upgrade - I was told by Acer's overseas on-line warranty service this netbook couldn't even accept more than one 1gb.

When I posted my experience as the earlier, deleted review here, the Acer product manager from San Jose jumped into the discussion to affirm that this netbook IS designed to take customer installed 2gb upgrades, and that the warranty support line adviser was simply wrong. Since my particular unit wouldn't take memory modules that had already been proven to work in my other netbooks (including another N450-based netbook) it was concluded that my particular unit was defective. The Acer product manager reported that all of his production samples in San Jose accepted standard 2gb upgrades. One other reader later reported that his unit wouldn't take an upgrade either, also using known good memory pulled from another netbook. So basically it appears that there is a glitch in some, but not all, units that Acer is shipping. Based on my past experience with Acer (I've owned 5 or 6) and faith in Amazon's return policy, I would have no problem ordering this ao532h, with the caveat that if you intend to upgrade the memory, try doing it right away while your unit is still within the Amazon returns period. Please note that my sample ran fine with the included 1gb module from Acer, and that upgrading the BIOS per the warranty line instructions did not allow my sample to accept either of the two 2 gb replacement modules I had on hand.

So this review is to confirm that this netbook IS designed to accept a 2gb memory module upgrade, and to caution you to check your unit for compatibility. The 2gb memory module spec'd at Crucial dot com specifically for the ao532h is as follows:

Part #: CT1165194 * DDR2 PC2-5300 * CL=5 * Unbuffered * NON-ECC * DDR2-667 * 1.8V * 256Meg x 64 *

The crucial dot com price is about $6 higher than a similar spec'd module from Crucial which is shown by Amazon on this product page as a recommended accessory. Any generic DDR2, PC5300, SoDimm with 667 speed should work, but if you want to be cautious, make sure you get the exact same part number shown above (CT1165194) until Acer provides additional advice on this issue.

***************

So on to some more useful "user" comments about this netbook, based on my week and a half experience with it (using only the 1gb of memory it came with).

FIRST, this netbook is THIN and of course light. It may well be the thinnest one out there (although the Acer ao751h, now discontinued but still owned by me, was also quite thin). It certainly would earn that kudo if it came with a 3 cell battery like the ao751h, but then it wouldn't be getting 8 hours of battery life. Personally, I'd rather have the battery life even if the rear of the chassis is raised by maybe .25 inch.

Please note that similarly priced models from other manufacturers only come with 3 cell batteries.

Also note that some 6 cell batteries have longer battery life - at a slight increase in weight.

Since Acer netbook models only use two form factors for batteries (ao751h style or ao250 style) you should be able to pick up a 3 cell, 6 cell normal, or 6 cell high power accessory battery from Amazon later, should you desire a second battery.

SECOND, the power brick and cord for this netbook are SMALL and LIGHT. While the power brick itself is comparable in size to other makers, Acer has done something neat with the power cord runs - instead of having a super thick, 3 prong "toaster oven" size electrical cord to the actual power brick, followed by a thin, light second run to the netbook, they attached the plug directly to the power brick and just give you a longer run of the thinner, lighter cord coming off the brick to the netbook. YAY.

This means the whole brick assembly packs down smaller and lighter. Also, since the plug can now be safely set up as a two prong (instead of 3 prong) with no polarization, it will easily fit into plug outlets in Asia without an adaptor.

THIRD, the touchpad was the easiest yet for me to use. It wasn't hypersensitive (clicking accidentally when I meant to just move the cursor), and has raised dots to indicate the vertical scroll bar area on the touchpad, which worked really well. Some other touchpads let me scroll, but either require two fingers to scroll, or have an ambiguously defined right side area where I am supposed to scroll. The raised dots on the Acer let me find the scroll line and use it effectively.

Since I was forced to use only 1 gb on my defective unit, I got to see how well it performs, and was surprised by how well it works with even 10 browser tabs open at the same time. I still think 2gb is better, at least if you are going to try to run VLC with h.264 transcoded videos - on other netbooks I get stuttering with only 1gb. I didn't have a chance to try VLC on this model.

The only negative on this model is slight keyboard flex, which comes, I suspect, as a result of the thinness. It doesn't flex so much it feels like it is going to break, just feels a little rubbery. I have an HP Mini 210 that is more resistant, but not completely resistant, to flex, but it is also a lot fatter, so you will have to decide which you prefer. Oh I should also mention that the ao532h comes with the usual stunning, but glossy, Acer screen - if your preference is for a mat screen you will need to turn to some HP and Asus models. But iff you prefer glossy, you should love this screen.

JUDGMENT: If you carry the power brick around a lot, the redesign of the power cord alone is a big advantage of this model. If your budget is $300 and you can't live with the shorter battery life of 3 cell competitors, this is your best option. For about $40 more from other makers, you can get a more robust 6 cell battery and possibly a larger 250 gb hard drive. But this ao532h is definitely the one to beat if you are budget shopping.

A WORD ON PRICING AND ARCANE MICROSOFT & INTEL OEM REQUIREMENTS: Microsoft is loathe to charge small license fees on netbooks - the license fees are currently apparently much lower than on other laptops, a reflection of the small margins in netbooks - and Intel is loathe to sell millions of cheap Atom processors instead of more costly, and profitable chips. So the two have "conspired," to to speak, to limit the specs on netbooks if the manufacturers expect to get the lower licensing fees, and so far as I can tell that is why the new generation of netbooks are all appearing with only 1gb of factory installed memory and generally only 160 gb hard drives even though Acer's own eMachines 250, blown out at Walmart for only $228, came with a 250gb hard drive. 250 gb harddrives (but not 2gb factory memory upgrades) are available, but at a disparate increase in price considering the low OEM margin between 160 gb and 250 gb drives at this point - probably because (I suspect) in order to include a 250 gb harddrive, the license fee for Win7 also goes up.

The "benign" side of this "conspiracy" is that MS has apparently slashed Win7 Starter prices to the point where it is as cheap as, or cheaper than WinXP - which is why a lot of WinXP netbooks were announced for the N450 chip released in December 2009, but none seem to have actually made it to market.

A WORD ON WIN7 VS. WINXP: I like Win7, even Starter Edition, a lot more than WinXP - not for performance, but for its better interface. Reviewers claim that WinXP is still more efficient in terms of both performance and battery life, but I think the future life of WinXP is limited and that as MS releases updates and Service Packs for Win7, the battery life and slight performance penalty issues should be addressed - although I suspect the slight performance hit is related more to the extra goodies in Win7 than to any intrinsic superiority of code in WinXP (you can also revert to Windows Classic Theme in Win7 and turn off some services to save processing resources if you want to). Note that on benchmarks, Win7/Atom N450 setups have a slight performance edge on WinXP/N270 setups, so actually we seem to be making ever-so-slight performance gains in the rapidly growing netbook market. All in all, as much as I lust after every incremental increase in performance from these truly mouse-powered Atom netbooks, I would rather stick with Win7 than devolve to WinXP. And for those of you, like me, who are thinking about replacing their conventional hard drive in their netbook with a solid state (SSD) drive - Win7 has special features (TRIM) to optimize SSD performance - WinXP does not.

A WORD ON WIN7 STARTER: Win7 Starter works fine, although those MS won't let me change my screen color unless I revert to Windows Classic Theme (I like to run a black background to save a little power). There is not absurd limit on the number or programs you can run at one time under Win7, an early proposal gratefully abandoned. The only obvious "crippling" of Win7 Starter - other than that permanently green desktop color - is that it doesn't have the translucent Aero windows and other Aero desktop bells and whistles, features I would be disabling on a netbook anyway, for performance reasons.

A WORD ON LINUX VS. WIN7 STARTER: I tried installing dual boot Linux systems on my other netbooks, principally Ubuntu Netbook Remix which is supposed to be optimized for the Atom chip, but also Moblin and JolliCloud. Two observations: Linux is cool, but no faster than Win7 despite hints to the contrary (it is NOT a "lighter, faster" operating system); and hell hath no fury greater than a Linux dual boot install when you try to uninstall it. Guess what - there IS no uninstall option, and I trashed two hard disks trying clean out GRUB or whatever that parasitical dual boot manager is called. I finally had to order rescue disks on one netbook and use a really obscure, hellishly difficult to operate rescue tool just to access the netbook's rescue partition on the other. 5 hours down the drain in each case. And oh yeah, there is no iTunes for Linux, which pretty much kills the utility of Linux for 78% (just guessing) of the computing population. That having been said, Linux IS free, and is a lot better than it was in 2000, and I may even initially try it on the SSD I will install on one of my older netbooks, since that won't start life as a dual boot system. Then when I get frustrated again I will just install Windows over it. :-) I have gotten good at that!

I bought mine from a local retailer for about the same price. I've owned a dozen laptops and even the 14" ones are too big and bulky for me. I love the portability of this machine and for the price, it's a really good value.

I highly recommend putting in a 2GB RAM module (I used an 800MHz one) and, if you like, a larger hard drive. The extra RAM gives Windows 7 room to breathe and speeds things up noticeably. The Starter Edition of Windows 7 is too limiting for me, I upgraded to another edition of Windows 7. After you upgrade the RAM and the OS to a higher edition of Windows 7, install the Acer VGA driver for Windows 7 and then you'll have the proper screen resolution and you can run in Aero mode.

I have run Ubuntu Linux (both the Netbook Remix and the standard one), Windows XP Pro, and Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit on my 532h and they all ran just fine. Stick to 32-bit operating systems on this model since it can't take more than 2GB of RAM (like all netbooks).

For web surfing, I use Google Chrome and it runs much faster than IE8 or Firefox on this machine. Chrome is a good choice because now you can add extensions, like ad blockers, to it. Basically, if you're like most people and 90% of what you do on a computer is social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), browsing the web, word processing, email and other simple tasks -- well, this machine is all you need.

Finally, remember, it's a Netbook. Not a desktop or even a regular laptop. If you want to do any serious gaming, forget it, but it will run some games. There are netbook websites that are very helpful and some of them even have game recommendations for netbooks.

I strongly disagree with a previous review of this netbook. I also purchased this model number from a different vendor (I just needed it right away) and I have to say that you get a lot for what you are paying. True--it is not as fast as a dual-core processor laptop but that's the point--it doesn't need to be! I surfed the web, I watched streaming video on both Netflix and Hulu, I typed a document and you know what? It all worked great! What else can you ask for? Any complaints? Yeah, it doesn't make me toast in the morning. I don't understand what people are yelling about!

A netbook seems ideal for vacation travel. It's compact, lightweight (2.6 lbs), has wireless for internet, a good size screen for viewing photos, a big drive (160 GB) for storage, an 8-hour battery, and a media card slot to download photos from the camera.

My first decision was Acer at $ 300 Vs. HP at $350. They are virtually identical. I've been unimpressed with HP's tech support on my $ 1500 laptop. HP has no advantage.

First impressions of Acer Aspire One 532h-2588:
A highly adjustable angle provides good screen viewing. Keys are 93% the size of a full keyboard and quite comfortable. The Acer has 1 GB of RAM expandable to 2 GB ($48). And it lacks a DVD drive ($ 60-70). I expected I would need more memory and an external DVD drive.

To test it, I loaded software to view, rename, and edit photos, plus a full compliment of word, spreadsheet, presentation, database, etc. software. Here's the list of software I installed by downloading from the internet and using my license keys to activate as necessary.
The full Norton Security Suite
Google Picasa photo viewing and editing software = FREEWARE
Photoshop Elements 8
Nikon Capture NX2 photo editing software
FileRenamer FREEWARE from Sherrod Computers
Open Office Org word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, etc, = FREEWARE

Based on ease of loading software from the internet and transferring files via USB port, I decided I do not need an external DVD drive.

My first test was to determine if the included Windows software could display a photo in Nikon RAW/NEF format. Windows software could not handle the RAW file. I installed Google Picasa. It immediately recognized and displayed photos in Nikon's RAW file format.

The next step was to edit a photo with Photoshop Elements 8. It worked fine and appeared to run almost as fast as my desktop which has 4 GB of RAM. Then I tried "Capture NX2", the phenomenal image editing software from Nikon. I was apprehensive this software would not work with 1 GB RAM. My suspicions were correct. Nikon's software needs a lot of RAM; it struggles to run on my desktop with 4 GB of RAM. I doubt this software would run on the Acer with 2 GB of RAM. This may be a moot point because the small screen on the Acer is not suitable for serious photo editing.

The FileRenamer software loaded but gave an error message that all functions might not work in Windows7. But it works fine and does a great job of renaming photos.

Based on these tests, I believe the Acer is excellent for reviewing photos to decide which to delete, renaming the remaining photos and placing them in file folders, and some minor photo editing.

My last test involved the Open Office Org full suite of software. I opened a very large (42,000 KB) text file with multiple photos and complex page formatting. The Aspire One kept up with the page display as I scrolled thru the document and allows me to edit this huge file. It's not as fast as my desktop, but it works fine. I amazed this little computer with only 1 GB RAM can run all this software and handle such a large text file.

Bottom Line = The Acer Aspire One 532h-2588 is an excellent travel computer for viewing, renaming, minor editing, and storing photos. The display screen is about half the size of an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. That's big enough to review photos, but too small for serious photo editing even though the computer runs Photoshop Elements 8. This size screen is reasonable for writing and editing a text document and connecting to the internet to view email. From a practical standpoint, I believe the only limitation of the Acer is the screen size. If you can accept that, I would highly recommend it.

For easier transport, I bought a Targus bag with a mouse ($ 29). The small bag has lots of storage room, a handle and clip-on shoulder strap.

The Acer meets my needs as a vacation travel computer. It's easy to carry and surprisingly powerful. Another issue is the risk of it being stolen. I would rather risk theft of a $ 300 netbook with minimal personal files than having my $ 1500 laptop stolen which has ALL my personal files. To protect the limited number of personal files on the Acer, I've password protected the Windows7 start-up screen and set separate passwords for each sensitive, personal file on the computer.

I liked the computer for checking email and internet, until it had this problem where I pressed the power button and it started to turn on and shut down. Without writing on forever, when you mail your computer to Acer for warranty repair (the only way to get it repaired), Acer will do everything in its power to not fix your unit from mailing it back unrepaired because they don't t like the shipper you use, to claiming you have a cosmetic flaw that voids the warranty and they will tell you that you have to pay to fix it before they will repair your warranty item. I had to report them to the Better Business Bureau to get my unit repaired the first time, the second time I just gave up. Their customer service people are either in India, and can't help you and the ones in the US are very, very rude. I will never, ever buy and Acer again.

I also tried to add 2GB of PC2-5300 667Mhz RAM to a new AO532h and the result was a Netbook that would not get past the POST test. I emailed Acer about the issue and their response was that the AO532h does not support memory upgrades.

I took a closer look at the 1GB of memory that came with my Netbook and I noticed that it is actually PC2-6400 800Mhz RAM. I tried Kingston part # KVR800D2S6/2G, which is 2GB of PC2-6400 800Mhz RAM and my AO532h boots perfectly with it. I now have 2GB of RAM in my AO532h.

The bottom line is that the memory specs published for the AO532h are wrong and the Acer tech support people are useless. Use PC2-6400 800Mhz.

We purchased three of these for our family - not on Amazon but at another local retailer - and after 3 weeks one is down. The screen cracked internally, under normal use, and unless we decide to pay nearly half of the cost of a new machine, we are 1 down out of 3 and crossing our fingers that the other two don't break. A few minutes of searching on the web shows that lots of other people have experienced the same thing with their Acer netbooks - the screen cracked when they hadn't done anything to cause it and couldn't understand why. The point of this note is not to worry existing owners who, so far, have been happy with their low-end but functional computers, but to help other potential buyers be aware that while this may work fine for you, it is cheaply made and may break under normal use, and if it does Acer will not cover it. Obviously, it's like anything: sometimes you get lucky and can save money by buying a cheap brand that works for you. Sometimes, though, you are simply throwing money away, and it's worth spending a bit more to have the assurance that a company is standing behind their products.

I didn't expect much in the way of performance with a netbook of this size and specs, but I'd heard good things and read good things here. After two weeks I was quite happy with the purchases: they generally have worked fine for what we wanted to do with them - homework and email and light web surfing for the kids. They load a bit slowly compared to my Mac Book Pro and my wife's Macbook, but that's to be expected. They run more slowly than I would have expected based on the specs; 1GB of Ram, and 1.66GHz processor and it still seems to hang after almost every operation. Again, though, I could handle that based on the price. The keyboard is a bit awkward, and the touch pad is a bit less responsive than I'm used to, but again, that's what I expected.

What I didn't expect was that after 3 weeks the lcd screen on one of them would crack internally. That's what happened, though. The computer was working fine one evening, and then when we turned it on the next morning there was a large black patch in the corner of the screen, that looks like ink spilling from a crack. It only shows up when the computer is on. There's no external damage. We never dropped the netbook. No one stepped on it. It wasn't abused. It just broke, with normal use. What's ironic is that this one was probably used the least of the three, since the one who had it didn't like its keyboard or trackpad very much and used my wife's Macbook whenever it was available instead of this. Anyhow, after minimal use for a few weeks it broke. I thought it was unfortunate that it went so quickly but knew there was a warranty and assumed we'd be covered, since we didn't do anything unusual to cause it to break. I called the retail outlet where we purchased it (unfortunately, we didn't buy it from Amazon), and they said their policy was 15 days on electronics and after that we had to deal with the manufacturer directly. Still, I thought we should have no problem getting it replaced when it broke so quickly and there was no external damage to the unit that would suggest misuse. It turns out I was wrong.

I called Acer, and after speaking to three levels of management, I got the same answer: that the warranty on the computer covers only hardware failure but does not cover damage, and a cracked screen, even an internally cracked screen, counts as damage. It doesn't matter whether we didn't abuse or misuse the computer. They insisted that because the problem didn't show up when we first bought it, it must have been our fault. They asked if we'd dropped the computer or otherwise done something to cause this damage and when I insisted that we didn't the managers (two different ones) said that possibly it happened by opening or closing the screen or that maybe we set a book on top of the notebook and that may have put undue pressure. We did, of course, open and close the lid during normal use, but not roughly, and we didn't put any heavy books on it. As far as I'm concerned, though, if opening or closing the screen - even opening or closing it quickly - or putting a book on top of it could cause this kind of crack that means it is designed poorly. The manager accepted that I had reason to be frustrated but that their policy was that this kind of damage was not covered by warranty. After some discussion (not heated, because I don't think it is ever very helpful to get angry with a spokesperson who is simply repeating company policy) - after some discussion, in order to appease me, she said that if I liked I could send it in and they would run a test to determine if the problem was due to us or due to the manufacturing. If it was a design flaw, they would fix it and send it back free of charge. When I pressed, however, she admitted that if the screen was cracked internally (and I can see that it is) they would charge me for it. If I had to do it again, I would have taken the money from the three netbooks and purchased one nice one (probably a Macbook) or two better ones (probably Samsungs) for my kids to share. I guess as they say: you get what you pay for. I'm reluctant, at this point, to pay more towards fixing a laptop I bought a month ago, when it's clear that the company won't stand behind their machines and can't guarantee that they've been manufactured to reasonable standards of durability. I'm very disappointed and would not recommend going with this brand. Spend a little bit more for a Samsung, perhaps, or a bit more than that for a Macbook and you are much more likely to be satisfied long term.

UPDATE: I spoke with another manager at ACER and he insisted there is no proof that broken LCD screens are caused due to manufacturing defects. He was careful not to blame it on me, but merely insisted it was a cut and dry issue. That there was no reason they should have to cover this. I guess that's one attitude to take, but it's very different than the attitude I'm used to from electronics manufacturers like Canon and Apple. it makes me conclude that Acer is more interested in selling cheap computers to lots of people than in building long-term relationships with customers. It's worth knowing that before you buy.

I ordered this on the 16th and although S & H was free, I paid for it to be here on the 18th. It was and the extra S & H was worth it. I love this. I only purchased it to have something for when I'm on the go. The ONLY 2 complaints I have are about the battery and the fact that it runs pretty hot. I let it charge completely, while it was off. But when I go to turn it on, it'll say 100% but with only 6 hrs. remaining. But it doesn't really run out fast so it's not a big deal. As far as it running hot, it does, and fast. But a cooling fan will fix that. So again, no biggie. As far as it being slow, maybe I just got lucky because I haven't had that problem. The web is fast and when I go to open a regular program, it opens right up. The volume is just fine for me. I can have it in my living room and still hear it clearly in the kitchen. I absolutely love the display. Crystal clear and pristine. I also love how on start-up, it automatically found my home network. Guess that's what it meant when it said it was Wi-Fi certified because I went and spent 30 bucks on a Wireless Adapter and I don't need it now. The Windows 7 Starter is nice. Nothing to jump up & down about to me though. Also, the weight is just fine. A little is added with the battery attached but that's to be expected. And it's very sturdy. All-in-all, this is a GREAT netbook for regular and simple computer operations. I have a desktop that works just fine so this doesn't need to do too much for me.

...until I had it for a while. I will go ahead and reiterate what many reviewers before me have clearly stated - you will struggle with this netbook if you depend on it for cpu-heavy tasks like playing graphics-intensive games or hardcore photo editing. Along the same lines (things you may have read in other reviews) this thing comes with a ton of bloatware that needs to be removed pronto or else it will run slow as molasses. I purchased this particular comp at tarjay for 2 bills, yes $200 and was expecting to get what I paid for, meaning a cheap piece of crap that would allow me to compute on the go. What I got was much, much more. It is simply a matter of realizing that you must buy into a new way of computing, at least if you are used to desktop pc's with tons of memory and HD space.

First thing you need to do is dump the windows 7 starter kit by way of upgrade (by paying $ or otherwise) and get yourself something a bit more suitable, I use 7 ultimate (although I don't really need to be, I just thought it sounded more awesome than "home" or "professional".) I tried on Ubuntu for a week or so and didn't like it all that much. Honestly it is a matter of personal opinion, it is total preference varying on a user to user basis that could be depend on something arbitrary like a visual theme or location of certain needed items or files. The cool thing about Ubuntu is that it is 100% free, and you can boot it from a thumb drive so you don't have to wipe your 7 out to try it. I tried it, thought it was pretty cool, but didn't notice any real difference in speed. That was the whole reason I tried it, I read a bunch of opensource junkies waxing about how much faster it was and guess what, it wasn't. Hardly noticeable. 7 is like what vista should have gone for in the first place: everything you need minus a whole bunch of useless programs you never use that take up tons of hard drive space, although there are a few stupid things you can easily uninstall, most of it from Acer. Once you go though the control panel and uninstall all the bloatware, this thing is lean and mean. But you absolutely have to follow these rules, in my opinion based on 6 months experience with this product, if you want it to perform at maximum speed and efficiency.
First off, wean yourself from the tit of any browser besides Google Chrome. I tried every single different one on here and Chrome on this sucker runs laps around the competition in terms of speed in loading pages and graphics. Other browsers (I prefer Firefox) just do not cut it on this thing. Your next step, if you have to do word processing or any other MSoffice task like excel or powerpoint, is to get openoffice. Ditch the proprietary microjunk and get OO, it works much faster and uses less battery. If you need to read PDFs, get Foxit reader. Again, I have tried many different products for these tasks and these ones are the quickest loading, most CPU efficient programs out there and guess what: they are FREE! Nothing is stopping you from unlocking this netbooks true potential.
OK - let me clear the air once and for all about the issue of Readyboost, touched on vaguely and uninformatively by a few reviewers and overlooked by the rest. If you don't know what readyboost is, it is a feature on vista and 7 where you can allegedly increase your computers peppyness and responsiveness by using a thumb drive for small ram operations (forgive my lack of jargon, look on wikipedia for a nerdier explanation.) Flash drives are so ubiquitous nowadays: what a great idea it would be to throw one in one of the three usb slots for a quicker computer. What's this? You can even use a SD card in the cardreader so there isn't anything sticking out of the side of your netbook! How awesome!
NO. The cardreader is not USB 2.0, why, I have no idea. Someone in another review incorrectly stated that acer has a driver that enables you to use readyboost in the cardreader. Not so, I tried all the different drivers there are and no haps. So I tried it with the USB flash drive and wala, it worked. It increased speed noticeably, I recommend it for anyone who has one of these netbooks. Cheap, and I use a Buffalo thumbkey 4gb that protrudes only 5mm from the side of my netbook. Like it's not even there. Readyboost is only effective if you use it in a 2.5:1 or less ratio to your ram. 4gb readyboost cache on the flash to 2gb ram is my current setup.
That brings me to my next point: upgrade the ram. It is really easy. There is a lot of faulty info about ram upgrades in other literature about this netbook, even from the so called Acer "tech support" guys. Yes, you can upgrade the ram. It is not at all a matter of some computers will and some won't, if you have the Acer ao532 2588 you can throw in a 2gb ram stick. I have a couple friends who also have this computer and they have done the same. It is simply a matter of getting the right part, not the one that Amazon tells you that other customers have bought while buying this or in other reviews or wherever -
I bought part # KAC-MEMF/2G model 2GB 667MHz Module from Kingston's website. Be careful, kingston makes a cheap kind of ram (kingston economy or someother something), and then they have their premium top dollar stuff. This 2gb stick is the good stuff and it was $48, worth every penny. Best move I made with this netbook, it is really quick now. Cheap ram is a false economy because it runs hot (and this baby gets pretty warm sometimes if it's actually in your lap) and it doesn't last as long. This part is KNOWN GOOD, I am using it now. Make sure to cram that thing in there snug or else your comp will not boot.
The battery life is great, usually 6 hours of actually doing stuff on it before it dies, longer if you use certain tricks. Don't use Aero theme on 7. I know it looks sweet, but it is a waste of cpu and battery. Totally unnecessary. I use high contrast black, so when I'm typing in openoffice the background is black and the text is white. It takes a second to get used to, but if you have it that way you can turn the brightness down really low to preserve battery and still see the text clearly, unlike black text with a white background where you have to have it a certain brightness or else it is unreadable. Neat little trick I thought I would share that nobody else really touched on. Another reviewer said they have a plain black background to nominally speed up cpu: that is stupid and they are playing themselves out of having something cool there, I have "the kiss" by Klimt. The way the LCD works is that it uses the same cpu/battery/ whatever no matter how you have your background set. I guess that person has psyched himself into thinking his computer is faster that way. Not to dwell on it, but I laughed out loud reading that. Pointless.
The wireless on here is great. It quickly locks into the network you are in range of, no problems whatsoever. I look at the news on my back porch, write papers in my study, watch movies in my room and look at Hulu in the basement. No connectivity issues in the house or on public wifi. Phenomenal in this aspect.
Oh yeah, a lot of crybabies have been whining about the fingerprints that this netbook accumulates - wow, get a life. If it really upsets you maybe you should go in the box the netbook comes in and get the suede rag provided by Acer to wipe it down if you need to so badly (how come no one else said anything about this rag? It solves the problem completely and takes ten seconds to do.) It is such dumb thing to complain about on a 200$ computer. It's like buying a coat at the thrift store and complaining when it smells funny, this isn't a macbook that cost 2 grand people, when someone sees you using it they will more likely think "look at that person with their cheap little netbook" than "wow that thing would be nice if it didn't have the fingerprints". Non-issue.
I grabbed a Targus neoprene sleeve for my netbook for ten ducats. It fits perfectly, smells like crap, is really ugly and serves it's purpose wonderfully. Get one before you drop this thing and feel like an idiot.
The keyboard is good once you get used to it. The caps lock key is inconvenient and it gets hit accidentally a lot, and yes, the arrows are small. Not such a big deal. The touchpad takes a minute to get the hang of, and I never use the "gestures". It is ok, not amazing, but more than I should expect for the cost.
The webcam is actually pretty good. I can skype my fam and peeps all over the world with hardly any delay, and little choppyness. I use MediaPlayer Classic for viewing movies and shows, the program takes up like two megabytes and handles any format you throw at it. Highly recommended, and 720p plays fairly well but don't get all 1080p on this thing, it's not happening. The speakers on this netbook are aight, not alright but just aight, I had some plug in speakers lying around and I use those so no biggie. The plug is pretty small, it doesn't take up two plugspaces in the wall (you know what I mean) and is surprisingly light. I think that covers just about everything.
Overall, I wish I could travel back in time 6 months and read this review. I would have saved bread on a ram stick that was the wrong model that some dbag in another review insisted was the RIGHT model, an SD card that wouldn't work for readyboost, and I would probably have 50 hours of my life back that were spent waiting for word to load and for adobe to open a pdf. Not to mention firefox timesinking my entire night loading a web page. But now, me and this thing are unstoppable and I laugh at clowns who waste upwards of a grand or more on a lap. Totally unnecessary, unless you need to photoshop or are a gamer. For everything else - especially for a student like me - the ao532 is your go to. Get like me - I love this thing and with all the upgrades and accessories it was under 300$. You can't lose.

This is a great netbook - well designed and extremely light, and cheap. As a web browser or word processor its performance is excellent. It has no trouble with demanding Flash games, having multiple windows open or standard definition web video. Windows 7 is snappy even on 1GB. The web cam is low resolution but good for video conferencing. The battery life is very good, 6 or 7 hours.

It's important to know that this is not a regular laptop computer though. Its processor is not powerful enough to do tasks like playing HD video, and the computer becomes sluggish when running complex programs like iTunes, often taking a second to register after you press a key or click. For video, it's able to handle video at a vertical resolution of 360 lines but higher resolutions are jumpy, and 720 line videos are shown at very few frames a second. Not a single HD iTunes or HD YouTube video has played smoothly, even when buffered and with no other applications running.

This isn't a problem - after all, this is supposed to be a very portable netbook, and it's excellent at that, but it's not a machine you'll want to watch movies on. What it can do is really impressive for the size and cost, and I'd recommend it as long as you're aware of its limitations.

Other issues to be aware of are a rubberized touchpad surface that prevents your finger from gliding across it smoothly, and that the version of Microsoft Works that it comes with is advertising-supported. You'll need an external DVD drive to make backups of its system software and applications.