Acer Aspire One 751h: NetbookSize++

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.