Today we'll be reviewing both a netbook and a full-fledged laptop, the Acer Aspire One 532h-2326 and the Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904, respectively. One or the other of them will more than likely suit your portable computing needs.
The Acer Aspire One 532h-2326 is a 10.1-inch netbook that does not stand out from the crowd, but is still a good portable computer in its own right. It offers good performance and a standard feature set at a competitive price. You can find the Aspire One for around $350. It comes with a one-year warranty on parts and labor. Technical support is available via telephone or through Acer's website.
Like several other netbooks, the Aspire One is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor with 512 MB of L2 cache. This processor gives the Aspire One a performance similar to its competitors that use it as well. Don't expect any blazing speeds, but you can perform most mainstream tasks like web surfing, instant messaging, and the like without much of a hassle -- and that is about all you can reasonably expect out of a netbook.
Multitasking is helped by 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM. A nice-sized 250 GB hard drive is on board to provide good storage space. Graphics are supported by an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 card. Battery performance, as expected, is very good on the Aspire One, as its six-cell battery provides an estimated ten hours of usage when fully charged. This makes the system an ideal travel companion. Microsoft Windows 7 Starter is pre-installed as the operating system.