Customer Reviews

Acer Aspire AS1410-2285 11.6-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Acer 1410 with Intel dual-core SU2300 and Windows 7 is a useful, general purpose mini-notebook. It is small and light enough to be carried around all the time, yet large and fast enough to do most ordinary work. Word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail and Web browsing are all responsive, although there have been reports of some performance limits showing HD video. These units are being delivered with 64-bit Windows and 2GB of memory. For about US$80 one can install 2x2GB of PC2-6400 memory, reselling the delivered 2x1GB of PC2-5300 memory if that proves possible. Speed becomes faster and battery life longer when using the Windows Classic theme and setting "Adjust for best performance" in Control Panel, System, Advanced system settings, under Advanced and Performance. Even with maximum power use the unit remains cool, with only slight warming near left-side ventilation exhausts.

The display provides about 135 color pixels per inch, while the human eye is capable of resolving only about 70-90 per inch. Small-size text will be unreadable without a magnifier. However, all commonly used Windows displays are readable, unaided, for a person with normal to somewhat near-sighted vision. Display software provides an option to boost text dimensions 25 percent at the expense of reducing content of application windows. A 50 percent brightness setting is adequate for indoor use and extends battery life. Even 100 percent brightness cannot overcome reflections from the glossy screen for outdoor use. Visibility angles are limited to around 30 degrees in practice, slightly more from above, and color fade begins at about 15 degrees.

The keyboard design provides full US spacing of 9 inches across a row of 12 keys. Tactile feedback is adequate for fast touch-typing. The touchpad is adequate, but its many options may confuse new users. It is best to start by visiting Control Panel, Mouse, Device Settings, Settings, and disabling all options except Buttons, setting the PalmCheck and Touch Sensitivity options to the second lightest. Later the span of options can be adjusted as familiarity with the unit grows. The touchpad software is unresponsive. Even with options disabled, the pointer movement on the display is apt to surge and freeze. Acer's case design worsens those problems by providing poor tactile feedback for touchpad boundaries.

The WiFi interface performs creditably and connects quickly. WiFi can be disabled by a switch under the front edge to save power when it is not needed. There is also a Bluetooth switch, but the 1410 does not come with Bluetooth. The audio is adequate for typical office use, where most Windows sounds are usually disabled. Battery life in normal use is likely to be around 5 hours. The power adapter delivered provides only 30 watts, maybe because of safety issues and recalls Acer has experienced. Battery recharge time with the computer off is around 2-1/2 hours and twice that with the computer on. Windows 7 performs without the reliability problems and the annoyances of Windows Vista. There are minor functional improvements over Windows XP, nothing that adds much productivity for office use. Utilities like Notepad and Calculator have not changed function since Windows 95.

The 1410's rich cousin, the 1810, is expected to be available in quantity by mid-November, 2009. Its SU7300 processor will be about 20 percent faster, and it will be delivered with 4GB memory and a bigger disk. For most office uses there will be no added benefit to justify a 50 percent higher price. Some customers may be attracted by around a 25 percent increase in battery capacity. Overall the Acer 1410 is a good candidate for performing typical office work in a mobile setting, but no portable computer delivers the productivity of a fast desktop computer with a large display, mouse and freestanding keyboard.

Some reservations: Acer's documentation is unsatisfactory, only available on delivered machines, not on the Web. It consists of a "quick guide" to a category of machines, in this case both 1410 and 1810 models, equivalent to five typewritten pages, and a "generic guide" to the Aspire family, mainly on proprietary software, written in a CYA style and in a British dialect of English. As an example of the low-grade advice, it recommends carrying a spare battery but nowhere specifies appropriate batteries, or for that matter, specifies any other replacement parts or product options. In the case of the 1410, this can be disastrous, because the same 1410 model number was used by Acer for an earlier portable computer, which requires different batteries. The battery is Acer part number UM09E31, but as of October, 2009, there was no source for that battery. Acer's warranty requires a lawyer to decipher, saying to contact a "Call Center" but providing no telephone number.

I agree with the previous reviewer: I chose this model with the SU2300 because of the additional performance associated with the dual core CPU. Since I consider anything less than 13" a netbook (such as this) I had no need for a 250GB hard drive the other model came with. The version I am reviewing is BLACK in color.

The Pros of this model:
-Windows 7 Home Premium runs, in my opinion, faster than XP would. Fantastic!
-AERO runs great
-The beefy graphics card and HDMI-out works great for watching HD movies on HULU or Youtube and putting them on a big screen TV with HDMI
-2GB RAM!
-Decent webcam
-Draft N wireless
-Nice sized and sturdy keyboard
-Lightweight and the size of an 8x11 piece of paper (thicker of course)
-The battery does not stick out the back like other netbooks

The Cons:
-Speakers didn't sound loud enough when sitting on my lap, but headphones do the trick
-Touchpad is a little square, I wish it was a bigger rectangle
-No bluetooth yet the button to turn it on and off is still there, kind of odd
-Glossy shell leaves finger prints
-Acer Pre-installed Bloatware (games, norton backup, google toolbar, MacAfee trial, etc)
-NO Windows OEM DISK! This drives me nuts if you ever need to reinstall but I think Acer has some backup partition (Alt+F10 or something at start up)


In all, this computer is blazing fast, has Windows home premium, great for school, or work. I have not tested the battery life yet, but I assume it goes for about 4 or 5 hours of regular use since it is 6-cell.

This is an excellent ultraportable laptop. I feel the screen size is perfect for viewing without being overly small or requiring a large frame.

Windows 7 Home Premium runs very smoothly and is relatively quick. Make sure you tell windows update to ask you before you download and install updates, before it starts bogging down your internet connection and cpu whenever it wants to. Even when it does run the update, you can still run other programs at a relative pace. Picks up new devices and installs the drivers rather quickly.

I find the keyboard to be good enough that you can type rather quickly without making major mistakes. The bottom of the laptop gets somewhat warm but not boiling hot that you can't bear it. The fan is also a little loud, but not overly and not silent either.

I chose this specific model due to the faster processor. The price increase over a 10.1" Acer netbook is definitely worth it - you get Home Premium, 2gb ram, larger screen, and a dual core processor. HDMI is a plus as well (as I will soon connect this to my HDTV).

Only drawback in my opinion is that it should've come with the 250gb hard drive, but it was either that and the slower processor, or the better processor and a 160gb. External USB drives are cheap nowadays anyway, so faster processor it was. 3gb of ram would've been nice, but the 2gb definitely does the job well for basic computing.

Overall, a great buy and I'm very happy.

Ignoring colors, Acer now has two different AS1410 Windows 7 laptops at the same $400 price point: Dual Core SU2300 with 160GB hard drive and a Single Core Celeron 743 with a 250GB hard drive. I chose this model with the SU2300 because of the additional performance associated with the dual core CPU.

Pros: 3.1 lbs, compact size, 6 hour battery, SU2300 performance, keyboard, 1366x768 LED-backed display, Intel GMA4500MHD graphics, 802.11n Wi-Fi, HDMI, webcam

Cons:
- Touchpad buttons too stiff, also, left button does not always register a click
- Glossy top cover attracts fingerprints
- No dedicated volume control (have to use arrow keys)
- Glossy screen shows reflections (I would prefer a matte screen)
- No bluetooth
- No esata
- 2 GB of memory comes as 2x1GB SODIMMs so if you want to upgrade to 4GB, you have to chuck the existing memory. Note that specs on Acer's website incorrectly indicate that the 2GB comes in a single SODIMM leaving a slot empty for upgrading.

In summary, the AS1410 could be better but for $400, it is a pretty good ultra portable laptop value. Amazon did a good job of packing it and shipping it quickly. Recommended.

I own both this laptop with the dual core SU2300 and the model with the single core SU3500. The SU2300 feels quicker and has a lower cpu utilization for a given activity than the single core SU3500, but my initial observation is that the battery life may be less (~10%)for the SU2300 laptop. I'm curious to see what results the formal review sites get.

After my 4.5 year old PowerBook finaly became useable, I though long and hard about getting another one, But i just couldn't justify the price. For one quarter of the price I originally paid for the powerbook, this laptop does great, but it certianly doesn't have the polish of an Apple.

The good:
The 1.2 ghz processor (dual core) has plenty of spunk for all my tasks. There are other versions of the 1410 out there with a 1.4 ghz that is actually slower because it is single core. Intels naming conventions don't make it easy to figure out, but both these processors are way better than the Atom you fin in the netbook. I've output 1080p quicktime via hdmi to a flatscreen and it ran very smooth.

The laptop is just to right size for carrying around all day, but still has a big enough screen and keyboard to actually be usefull for more than just chacking my email.

I've gotten over 5 hours on a battery with the wifi off reading pdfs and listen to music. (note: the speakers are on the bottom and work well if it is siting on a hard surface, but you'll get almost nothing when it is on your lap.)
Windows 7 is the best version of windows I've ever used, and feels very Mac OSX like. you canr ead reviews of Win7 elsewhere, but note that this computer has Home Premium, not Starter like the Atom-based netbooks.

The Bad:
The track pad is tiny and hard to use. This is part of the sacrafice of getting a tiny notebook, beacuse there is no way Acer could have made it any bigger. The multi-touch features make it a little more usefull, but don't even come close to the quality of apples track pads.

THe keyboard is nice and I'm back up to about my old typing speed, but the flatness of the keys makes it a little bit hard to feel your way around, and the the keyboard has some flex.

Acer's documentation is pretty much non existent. the box contains a quick start guide and a copy of the warranty. There is no disc with documentation or a recovery disc, although you can burn one with an external drive.

Bloatware: The Acer comes preinstalled with all sorts of junk you don't need. I knew this coming in , but it was still annoying to have to spend time uninstalling everything. The biggest annoyance came when The Macafee Secuirty center downloaded an update for itself that conflicted with the computers power management and cuase it to freeze when going to sleep, I had to run system restore twice because, the software auto updated again after the restore, causing the same problem.

Overall this is a well equiped laptop at a great price, and I'd recomend it with a few reservations about the bloatware and lack of documentation. But I saved $1200 over buying another apple so I will but up with a few hassles

I bought this SU2300 equipped AS1410 during an after Christmas sale.
Pros:
- quick
- windows 7 64 bit premium
- good battery life (with a caveat below)
- great size!

Cons
- screen could be better. Glossy so it's reflective and it's picky on angle. The contrast washes out easily when out of the sweet spot.
- trackpad is too flush with the surface
- biggest problem is that it continues to drain the battery even when completely OFF!

I was tempted to return my purchase because of this last problem. I'm not an everyday laptop user. I grab it to use in the garage on weekends, take on business or vacation trips, or to go and repair equipment at remote locations. I'm the kind of person that charges it up, uses it for a half an hour or an hour, the turns it OFF and doesn't pick it up again for a few days, a week, or a few weeks.

This laptop will drain the battery 5-6% per day even when OFF! I've updated the bios to the latest version. I am shutting it OFF. It is not sleeping or hibernating. I've turned off Wake on Lan. All this and it still drains the battery.
If I pull the battery, it doesn't drain so the laptop is definitely at fault.

Last weekend I charge it to 100% and shut it down. 6 days later I power it up and it's at 64% charge. So basically I can to fully charge this whenever I want to use it off battery power for more than a few hours.

No other laptop I've owned or use does this. Acer tech support has been no help - they're just following a script and insist the battery is bad. Many other 1410 users have noticed the same thing. Some have seen this problem on the 1810T also.

Dave

There are many other excellent reviews of the machine itself here, so I won't bother re-iterating what they say other than to agree this machine is an excellent value for the money: The AS1810 series, while including additional bells and whistles that some people may need, doesn't get you as much bang for the buck as the AS1410 series.

That being said, one thing you might like to know is that you can add an internal Bluetooth module to this machine. They're available on eBay for less than twenty bucks, and while installing it requires completely disassembling the lower case after removing the keyboard, battery, and hard drive, the instructions provided (at least from the vendor I dealt with) were clear and installation took less than half-an-hour, going slowly and methodically through each step.

IMO this option is more attractive than the tiny USB Bluetooth dongles, as I seem to always be running out of USB ports!

**UPDATE** - I wrote the original review (below) pretty soon after receiving the computer. A couple months later, the screen completely died with no warning whatsoever. No cracks, drops, liquid spills, or funny performance to indicate that something was wrong. Woke up one day and it just wouldn't turn on. Luckily it was still under warranty. I had to pay about $40 to ship it to their repair center in Texas, which was annoying; but now it's back in working condition and everything I said below still applies. I just hope this isn't a chronic problem and doesn't happen again after my warranty runs out.

I needed a laptop primarily for web-browsing, writing documents while traveling (on the train etc), some low-end engineering work (using Matlab), and to hook up to a projector to give presentations. For all of those purposes, this laptop has been perfect. I have access to more powerful desktop workstations for 3D CAD and more computationally expensive simulations etc. so did not need a super-fast processor or lots of RAM on the laptop. I know the 10.1" netbooks are extremely popular right now if you just need a computer for web browsing and basic document editing, and they run about $300. I was willing to spend the extra $100 for this model because (a) I hate the tiny keyboards on 10.1" netbooks and wanted a full-size keyboard and (b) I really like Windows 7 and it seems like all the 10.1" netbooks are running XP or the really watered-down starter version of 7. Only downside was like with any PC manufacturer, the Acer pre-load of Windows 7 was loaded with crapware. I can get a free OEM version of Windows 7 from work so I re-installed that with dual-boot to Ubuntu (as I stated, I like Windows 7 but there are some things I still prefer to do in Linux) and everything works great. Only minor glitch was that doing this somehow got rid of the driver for the wireless card so I had to re-download that when I was on a hardwire connection. All the other drivers (webcam etc) remained in place.

Especially considering the price, this is an excellent laptop for the needs stated above. I have friends at work with $1,400 Macbooks that use their computers for exactly the same things, and for the life of me cannot understand how it's worth paying an extra THOUSAND DOLLARS if all you're going to do is check your email...but that debate will probably never be resolved.

I have the "identical cousin" to this netbook: The Gateway EC1435. Gateway, Acer and eMachines are all the same company now. The Acer AS1410 and Gateway's EC series are the same netbooks with different labels. I liked the packaing of the Gateway a little better than the Acer. This is a trivial item, but Gateway has a nice chrome Gateway "badge" on the lid versus Acers larger logo. Otherwise they are identical.

My first week with the Gateway EC1435 has been an absolute pleasure. I upgraded from a Lenovo S10, which I really liked. It got me hooked on netbooks and their great portability. I wanted a larger screen and more poweful processor than the Atom. After researching all of the available options with the 11-12" screen, I settled on the Gateway/Acer because of the HDMI (haven't used it yet, but plan to) and the SU2300 dual core processor along with Win & Premium 64-bit. I am very pleased with the performance of this netbook. It doesn't feel anything like the Atom-based netbook I had used for nearly a year.

The larger screen really makes a difference. The 10.1" screens are OK if portability/light weight are your top priorities. You can get by with them; you have to scroll around more with them. With the 11.6" screen, I feel I get a much better web experience since I can get more of a web page on the screen and I can "shrink" it even more to give me a lot of image on the screen at any given time.

My biggest complaint is the glossy case/cover that all of the manufacturers seem to favor these days. It is a fingerprint magnet. My Lenovo had a flat black cover like their ThinkPads, and it was much better at hiding fingerprints and smudges. But for the difference in performance and the bigger screen, I can live with it.

If you are comparing 10.1" netbooks and the 11.6" netbooks, I think getting the more powerful Acer/Gateway is a no-brainer if the $400 is in your budget. I am really pleased with this netbook.