Acer Aspire One 533 review

Product Acer Aspire One 533
Website www.acer.co.uk
System Specifications Intel Atom N475 (1.83GHz), 1GB RAM, 10.1-inch 1024x600 LED-backlit display, 250GB hard drive, 128MB Intel 3150 integrated graphics, Windows 7 Starter 32-bit, 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0.
Price £279 including VAT.

NETBOOK SALES are being hit by the new breed of tablets, but laptop manufacturers looking to make a quick buck are still churning out new models. Acer certainly isn't averse to releasing the odd netbook, and the Aspire One 533 sits at the top end of its range.

With so many netbooks featuring a similar specifications list, it's always good to see something slightly new, and the Aspire One 533 is one of the first netbooks to sport an Intel Atom N475 processor. With support for DDR3, this 1.83GHz CPU does provide a small performance boost, but it's certainly not enough to power through all workloads and during testing the performance we saw was still blighted with lag on simple tasks such as switching between running applications.

At only 25.7mm thick - 27.2mm at the rear - and weighing 1.25kg, the Acer One 533 is very mobile indeed. It's built around a 10.1-inch screen with a native resolution of 1024x600, and with little flex in the keyboard or display it feels more durable than most netbooks. Acer has emblazoned the back of the lid with its One logo and given the touchpad and lid a nice gunmetal finish. If you don't want black, you can choose from red or white. LED lights are kept to a minimum, and the screen is raised on a well-designed hinge that reminds us of Sony's first ultra-mobile Vaios.

While the design looks good, it is slightly marred by the need to accommodate a big detachable lithium battery. This also means there is no room for connections at the rear. On the plus side, the big six-cell battery did give us an impressive eight hours and 12 minutes of life using Batter Eater Pro's Reader test, while in the more intensive Classic test it managed four hours and three minutes. With normal use, you can expect around five or six hours, which makes the Aspire One 533 a great contender for long-haul flights.

The keyboard and touchpad are also worth highlighting. Despite the small chassis, the keyboard is still 93 per cent of full-size. It's not the increasingly popular chiclet design and the keys could do with a bit more texture, but the bounce in the keyboard is perfectly judged, making it easy to use over extended periods. Acer has also managed to squeeze in over-sized backspace, shift and enter keys. Our only bone of contention is the under-sized arrow keys. We tried using these to navigate Excel documents and found it frustratingly easy to accidentally hit the wrong one. The touchpad is very responsive, with just one bar for left and right click, which keeps things neat. We also liked the slightly bumpy surface, which made navigating a slip-free process.

Although the LED backlit screen has a glossy coating, it doesn't give off too much reflection in bright light. And while narrow viewing angles hamper overall quality, it has a colourful palette and is fine for day-to-day business tasks. Connectivity includes three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA output, a multi-format card reader and an Ethernet port. Wireless is well catered for with support for 802.11.b/g/n as well as Bluetooth 3.0.

The rest of the specifications are as might be expected. The Aspire One 533 has a 1GB RAM module and there's only one slot so you can't add another. This is sufficient to run the included 32-bit Windows 7 Starter edition, but as always an upgrade to 2GB would give performance a boost. Our review model also had a 250GB hard drive, which should be enough for most people.

In Short
The Acer Aspire One 533 is a good-looking and robust netbook. We were also impressed with its keyboard design and decent battery life. However, although its Atom N475 CPU provides a small boost in performance, there's little to make this netbook stand out from the crowd. µ

The Good
Long battery life, great keyboard, beautiful design, excellent mobile credentials.

The Bad
Slightly disappointing display, small arrow keys.

The Ugly
Nothing.

Bartender's Score
7/10