Acer Aspire One 751h: NetbookSize++
by Jarred Walton on September 3, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Acer 751h: Size Matters
The Acer 751h doesn't radically alter what we expect from a netbook, but one of the sore points we've had with every netbook we've used on a regular basis to date has been the low native resolution. This was particularly troublesome on the original Eee PC with a paltry 800x480 LCD, and while the jump to 1024x600 has helped matters it's still far from ideal. With a move to an 11.6" chassis, the 751h finally gives us a resolution that we are happy with in a netbook. We would be okay with a 10.1" chassis, but at the bare minimum we really want WXGA resolutions. The Acer 751h gives us exactly that, and what's more it doesn't have to sacrifice battery life much in doing so.
That's not to say that the 751h is perfect, as there is still definitely room for improvement. Parity is the name of the game when it comes to netbooks, so what Acer has done with the 751h is easy enough to copy -- and in fact there are already other 11.6" netbooks on the market (i.e. the ASUS 1101HA), plus others like the Dell Mini 10 with a high-res 1366x768 panel. How do you differentiate your product from the others when performance is essentially the same? It's in the extras, like tweaking for optimal battery life and providing higher-quality components in the areas you control like the LCD and chassis design.
The LCD resolution is great, but contrast ratio could be much better. The keyboard works well and we have no complaints; we feel it is slightly better than the 10.1" netbooks since the keys are regular size. One of the areas that we aren't particularly pleased with is the touchpad; it works and it isn't horrible, but it definitely isn't as good as the GIGABYTE M1022 touchpad.
One of our biggest complaints is actually Intel's fault: the integrated graphics in the Poulsbo chipset. Despite the name (GMA 500), the graphics and drivers have very little to do with other Intel graphics solutions. GMA 500 uses a PowerVR SGX 535 core licensed from Imagination Technologies, and the result is that the drivers are far less mature than the GMA 950 drivers. It also means that getting good Linux drivers is going to be far more difficult, should you be inclined to try installing some flavor of Linux on your netbook. We did experience a few crashes during testing which appear to be caused by the graphics drivers, and the latest XP drivers available from Intel state that they are "intended for use by developers". Our interpretation is that they're beta drivers, and we would expect future driver releases to help with performance and stability. Unfortunately, fixing graphics driver problems has never been one of Intel's strong points (i.e. the G35 launch). Windows Vista drivers look to be a bit newer/better, but using those drivers under Windows 7 actually resulted in worse stability and performance. In general use, we didn't have any difficulties with the Acer 751h; it was only when we tried to push things to the limit that we experienced problems.
Overall, with the correct tweaks in place we feel netbook users now have another choice: do you want a slightly larger LCD with a higher resolution, or do you prefer slightly better performance and a smaller chassis? Obviously we haven't tested every netbook out there, but from what we've seen our pick for performance and battery life continues to be the ASUS 1005HA, plus it has a nice looking, high-contrast LCD (even if the resolution is lower). The Acer Aspire One 751h is a reasonable alternative that might just be easier on your eyes and hands, and the price and features are right. x264 accelerated playback works well with the PowerDVD 8 H.264/AVC codec and even 1080p works, which is more than we can say for the GMA 950/945GSE combination we see in other netbooks. We would still recommend the 1005HA to most users, but after using the 751h going back to a 1024x600 LCD is more than a little painful. If you place a higher priority on getting a decent resolution than on raw performance, give the 751h a look. If you already have a netbook and you're happy with the current status quo, it's not likely to change your overall impression of what a netbook can be, but choice is always good.
For those waiting for the "Next Big Thing", we have a few other netbook alternatives in our queue that mix things up by providing larger chassis designs with faster graphics while keeping the weight close to three pounds. Looking further out, the next major platform release for netbooks is coming in a few more months. Pine Trail/Pineview should improve performance and battery life, and integrating the graphics core into the CPU could really boost performance in an area that's truly lacking at present. The question is, can Intel create graphics drivers that will compliment the performance? GMA 500 is not the right solution at present for that task, so hopefully Pineview will do better. We'll find out in the coming months.
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kopilka - Saturday, January 16, 2010 - link
Which model has a version of XP Professional Edition?Where can I find information on the XP Professional Edition [url=http://www.legalrxuk.com">http://www.legalrxuk.com]online[/url]?
gipper - Friday, September 4, 2009 - link
I could care less about screen SIZE, but having an x600 screen, I would kill for x768. I'll probably buy another at the first of the year when these 10 and 11" x768 screens are offered with the new chipsets.The 10" keyboards work fine, and if they wanted, they could fit these 11" displays in the same chasis. The bezels on the 10" books are ridiculously oversized.
cremefilled - Friday, September 4, 2009 - link
I've had my Acer 751h for two weeks. As suggested, look for the Bing combo specials. My 6-cell red 751h with XP Home netted $295 at Tigerdirect after Bing rebate and an additional $20 Paypal rebate.If you get the right codecs, these play high-def videos *wonderfully*. I've played all sorts of mkv and avi files, including very high bitrate mkv's (16GB 1080p file, averaging something like 12Mbps video bitrate). This is in Windows XP Home; make sure the files are local, not over wireless. You can find several tutorials on the Internet for setting up 264 hardware decoding-- and yes, it does currently involve using PowerDVD h/x264 codecs. So far, after having tried 12 to 15 Usenet/torrent mkv files, I have 100% compatibility. It's really remarkable to play a 1080p video on this tiny, lightweight device. It's like the world's greatest portable DVD.
I've owned several netbooks, including top-rated Asus and Samsung 10" iterations. This Acer DESTROYS them for high-def video, provided that you take the time to track down the right drivers. Also, the battery life for DVD playback improves if you use the PowerDVD general video codec -- like the PowerDVD 264 codec, this uses the GMA500 for hardware MPEG2 decoding. DVD playback when using GMA500 hardware decoding is less pixellated than the Asus and Samsung netbooks -- not sure why...
For everyday web browsing, MS Office, music playback, etc., this 1.33 MHz Atom is "just as good as" the higher speed Atoms. They're all fine. (The only caveats would be Youtube fullscreen, and some jerkiness when quickly scrolling through a webpage. By the way, you can overclock the Acer from Windows... just look around the Net.) The 11.6" screen and the fullsized keyboard are HUGE improvements over the 9" and 10" form factors. (The Acer's keyboard is better than the keyboard on my 15.6" Toshiba notebook.) The only thing I need more processing power for in a portable is high-def video, and the Acer 751h -- if you will tinker a bit -- absolutely rules in that category.
I'll add that the 751h is exactly the same weight as my 9" Asus netbook -- the latter still looks "cool" and svelte (the 900HA, I think). Hold them side by side, and you realize how much thinner and more elegant the Acer is. It is also very cool in your lap -- much better than other netbooks I have tried.
I think there's an Acer coming out with the same 11.6" screen size, a single-core Core2 CPU, and a battery that doesn't jut out -- for $500 retail. That would be a heck of a bargain, but it couldn't decode mkv's any better than the 751h does.
lr300a - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Those benchmarks are totally irrelevant. How can anyone use a netbook to do encoding of x264 video? I think that different benchmarks must be posted on applications which are important in a netbook (like java youtube player performance, divx decoding, 720p decoding cpu occupancy).JarredWalton - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
DivX 720p decoding works and provides the listed battery life. Are you going to try to watch a movie while doing something else on one of these netbooks? If so, you're not going to enjoy the experience much... every time I start interacting with other apps while a movie is playing, the system stutters. As it stands, YouTube works, but YouTube HD doesn't -- as I mentioned in the last two netbook articles, which had faster CPUs/GPUs.The tests I ran are supposed to give you an idea of relative performance, which in this case means that you see how slow these Atom CPUs are in CPU intensive tasks. PCMark05 gives you an idea of general application performance. I'm not sure what good it is to try and capture %CPU use for video playback, when it either works or fails. I can see about adding such a test, but adding more tests just means fewer articles written. My goal right now is to review MORE laptops, even if it means we don't get as much detail on each one.
Jjoshua2 - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Could we always have a test on these netbooks to see if they can run youtube HD fullscreen? I think most everyone wants to do this, and it is the most intensive thing that most people will do. I don't see why someone would watch 1080p on such a small screen, and its not for home theaters.It would also be nice to have a flash game test to see if it stutters on that. I know one flash game that seems slow on my netbook sometimes is farmville a facebook flash game.
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, September 4, 2009 - link
My C2D@3GHz/GT260/WinXP has visible stuttering with youtube HD. I don't think it's optimized to run well in general.JarredWalton - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
I mentioned it in the ASUS 1005HA and Gigabyte M1022 reviews, but those two netbooks couldn't handle YouTube HD - regular YouTube was fine. Needless to say, with a slower CPU/chipset, the Acer 751h definitely can't play YouTube/Hulu HD. :(Griswold - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Once again its not just the display that is glossy, the display frame comes with a piano finish. Bloody murder! I guess its a plus that the keyboard area doesnt come with the same finish as well...It seems that the upcoming nokia booklet 3G is one of the few (if not the only) netbook that doesnt look like a bling-bling toy from a junk goods store.
Seriously, cheap doesnt mean it has to look cheap.
FATCamaro - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
God this looks like a cheap ass piece of shit even in photos. I can't imagine how shitty it is IRL.