Summer 2009 "Gadget Love" Review

This year's review is chock-full of cool, interesting stuff. It's going to be quite a challenge just to remember everything I've acquired since last year's review, but since I have some very interesting stuff to review, I'll just get right to it:

1. Acer Aspire One AOD150 Netbook. This is my latest new toy. For $329 from Amazon.com this 10" diagonal screen netbook (think: mini-laptop) is a pretty nice little machine. It comes with 1 GB memory and 160 GB hard drive. It also came with Windows XP SP3, but as we'll discuss, below, that isn't relevant for me. I tried out several other netbooks, including the ASUS eeePC 1000 HA (which had been my odds-on prior choice). This device has by far the very best keyboard of the dozen or so I tried. It's a little bit cramped and some of the navigation keys are oddly placed, but overall I like it a lot. Except I hitting the Fn key instead of the Ctrl key. Drat!
   
2. Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope." Free download from Ubuntu.com. Unless you have to have Microsoft Office (I have a friend who definitely needs it) or you are running some funky application only available for the Windows platform, this GUI OS is (and has) everything you need. Firefox, Open Office, media software, etc. It installs in under 1/2 hour. Boots faster than XP, and did I mention you don't need to worry about anti-virus software? I can mount all my USB portable drives, and I've even set it up for automated on-line backup, although it's not from Carbonite.
   
3. Unison file synchronization utility. Not as flexible as I'd like it to be, but it seems to work. You can't delete a "profile" or even change it once you've set it up.
4. AmaroK media player. It's no MediaMonkey, but it plays files from Jamendo and Magnatune (two of my favorite on-line sites). Of course, so will MediaMonkey, and its library organization capabilities are el fabuloso. I had to locate and install the right media codecs, which was initially a pain, but once I got them installed it simply works.
5. Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS. Very nice. Touch screen, and it actually speaks the street and highway names as you go. It's got features I haven't even used. I bought it last fall for about $200, and it's worth every penny. Amazon.com has them right now for $160.
6. Logitech V450 Nano and V470 mouses. The V450 has a teeny-tiny wireless dongle that probably won't get broken off, at least not easily. I now have two of these (one for my at-home desktop, and one for my new netbook). The V470 is the Bluetooth version of the same mouse. I use it on my work laptop, and of course it has no dongle.
7. Jabra A320s USB Bluetooth adapter. I use it with my Jabra BT620s stereo headphones. Works well, though I don't use it that often. The right earpiece will control the media player, as well.
8. Samsung USB portable DVD/CD writer. Works so far. I needed it for my netbook to install Ubuntu. I haven't tried it for burning, but I have no reason to think it won't work.
9. Jungledisk on-line backup. I am paranoid of losing stuff, so I signed up for this service to make sure my netbook documents are regularly backed up. It's relatively cheap, but so far I haven't done much with it.
10. Hitachi SATA 1 TB hard drive. I bought this for about $100 from Newegg.com. I replaced the hard drive in my home desktop (it was a measly 160 GB). Works like a charm, even though it seemed to run very hot when I had it in the portable drive dock (that I regularly use for my 500 GB backup hard drive).
11. I had been using the eSATA connection for the "external" hard drive (the drive dock is like a hard drive toaster--the drive just sticks up on end), but that connection isn't removable like USB, and I couldn't boot my computer without the drive attached. Overall, not worth it for the extra speed. Not that it was even all that much faster. I get about 20 MB/sec with the USB connection.
    

This list isn't as long as last year's, but given the oodles of software on the netbook that I haven't tried, yet, I may have another review for those things.

OK, here are some more stats for the Acer D150: Wired and wireless networking. 1.3 MP web cam, microphone (I have not tried either one of these). It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, and a 6-cell LiIon battery that lasts up to 8 hours. 2.95 lbs fully loaded. I prefer the external mouse, but the metal touch pad isn't too bad. Speakers sound pretty good. They seem to be under the front of the base. The palm rest area (below the keyboard) seems to get a tad warm, but I'm somewhat used to that. The case is shiny black, but the bezel around the keyboard is brushed aluminum. Cool, and it doesn't show fingerprints.

Lastly, this post was composed on it. Tight, but workable.