Acer Aspire One 722 Notebook Review

Ever since AMD's Fusion processor made their first appearance in January, the affordable ultraportable category has seen some seriously sweet entrants at enticing prices. Now that Acer has joined the party, along with HP, Sony, and Lenovo, we're seeing a more netbook-like price, undercutting them all with the $379 Aspire One 722. To offer that low price, Acer uses AMD's C Series APU instead of the more powerful E Series. However, this streamlined design (with eye-catching lid) offers more pep than Atom-powered netbooks along with long battery life. Is this bargain machine right for you?

Design

The Aspire One line has a look that's now becoming classic, but we're not complaining. The 722 looks sleek, thanks to the tapered edges and clean lines. The ripple effect on the lid, which evokes a pool of water disturbed by a single stone, is a nice touch. It helps the 722 to stand out without being gaudy. Given this effect, we prefer the aquamarine version of the model, especially as the color extends from the lid to the deck. For those who aren't a fan of blue, the Aspire One 722 also comes in black.

Unfortunately, the glossy lid picks up smudges easily (it doesn't help that we were drawn to touch the ripple all the time). This problem doesn't extend to the deck, where the plastic is matte. Even with the eye-catching color, the overall impression of the notebook under the hood is clean, not busy. Aside from the keyboard and touchpad, there's just the power button on the upper left and the status lights on the lower left.

Measuring 11.2 x 7.9 x 1.0 inches and weighing 3 pounds, the Aspire One 722 is relatively light and portable. At almost half a pound heavier than most netbooks, we did notice the weight in our bag, but we had no problem carrying this ultraportable around all day.

Acer Aspire One 722

Keyboard and Touchpad

We've always had mixed feelings about Acer's FineTip keyboards, and this one did not impress. The keys lacked good tactile feedback and springiness, and the keyboard flexed noticeably when we typed. This caused us to make more errors than we usually do. We never got comfortable with the layout, but it gets the job done.

By contrast, the large 3.2 x 2.0-inch touchpad on the Aspire One 722 didn't give us any trouble. The matte surface is the same texture as the deck, but it sits in a small indentation, so you can find it by feel. The single mousebar underneath is long enough that we didn't confuse right and left click. We found it responsive and appropriately clicky.

Acer Aspire One 722

Display and Audio

The Aspire One 722's LED-backlit 11.6-inch, 1366 x 768 resolution display has a glossy finish, though it wasn't too reflective under fluorescent lights. Colors are slightly muted, which is unusual for a glossy screen, and even at 100 percent brightness the panel seems slightly dim. Horizontal viewing angles aren't super wide, but three people sitting together should be able to see the screen without encountering color distortion or darkness. While watching an episode of

Murder, She Wrote on Netflix, we found that pushing the display past about 25 degrees (when looking at it head-on) made colors look darker and in shadow, so there isn't a wide vertical range, either.

The two small speakers under the Aspire One 722's front lip don't produce very loud volume - we had to turn the notebook up to 100 percent to get decent audio when playing some Adam Lambert tracks.

Table of Contents

Design, Keyboard, & Display

Webcam, Performance, & Graphics

Battery, Software, & Verdict

View All Pages / Printer-Friendly

Test Results / Compare

Image Gallery

Specs / Manuals

Compare Prices

Next Page >

Suka Mendaftar untuk melihat seperti apa teman Anda.

Comments Print Reprints 6 retweet

Our Related Content

Acer Aspire One 721 (3574) Review

Linux Street Fight: Linpus Lite on the Acer Aspire one vs. Xandros on the ASUS Eee PC

AMD Fusion-Powered Acer Aspire One 522 Netbook Spotted For Sale

From Other Sites

11.6 Acer Aspire One 722 up for pre-order $330

(Netbook News)

11.6 Acer Aspire One 722 with AMD Fusion gets handled

(Netbook News)

Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook, Not Another Drop in the Water

(Netbook News)

Related Deals

HP 630 LV970UT 15.6-inch 2.13GHz Dual-core Laptop $379.99

(via LogicBUY)

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 14-inch Laptop [Core i3 $674 | Core i5 $719 | Core i5 + Optimus $944 | Core i7 $980] FREE FREE SHIPPING

(via LogicBUY)

Asus K52 Series K52JT-XT1 15.6-inch Core i7 laptop $759.97

(via LogicBUY)

Lenovo IdeaPad Y560p 15.6-inch Laptop w/ AMD Radeon HD 6570M [Core i3 $719 | Core i5 $699 | Core i7 $799] FREE FREE SHIPPING

(via LogicBUY)

Get $150 off Lenovo G470 (model 432825U) - Lenovo

(via LogicBUY)