First Gartner and now IDC has highlighted the rise of the Small, Cheap Computer as one of key product categories keeping the European PC market afloat.
Laptops too are helping keep vendors' heads above water, and together with the SCCs helped shipments of all types of personal computer grow 27 per cent year on year during Q3, …
Acer may have taken a big chunk of the Laptot market but there is a defect with the Aspire One that makes it suffer from what is known as 'The Black Screen of Death'. Basically after about 3 weeks of use the laptot will not boot. It is down to a flakey BIOS and needs changing.
Unfortunately not many people know about this because nobody is reporting it on news sites, or at least I have not seen people reporting it. My one died after 3 weeks (exactly!) and I sent it back and got a replacement, but recently I discovered a discussion on Fedora Forums about it and it appears quite a few people have suffered from this issue. It has also been discussed on other forums.
From what I gather updating the BIOS solves the problem but the majority of users will be unable to do this!!!
I know two people with AA1s, both of whom have had 'em since August, both purchased in entirely different parts of the country. Neither has black-screened.
I do know of plenty of AA1 users who've tweaked their systems then got black screens during the start-up process. This is usually fixed with the Recovery CD supplied in the box, or by using the disc to make a Recovery USB Stick, which is what I did.
I bought an AA1 a month back, and while it does seem to have a fragile WiFi driver (MS XP Home, after waking from sleep, it will lose WiFi during the next session) I think it's a super machine.
I bought mine from John Lewis so it has a two year warranty - for the money I don't think you can go far wrong. :-)
I've had an AA1 for a month or so now and other than the pain of learning new ways of doing stuff (Linpus version) it's great, does just what it says on the tin - small, cheap, light, quiet gorgeous. Just annoyed that I only purchased one as the price seems to have gone up on Amazon since then.
And if you can make a general purpose system smaller it will sell every time, it is just too useful. Size of a book is the main sell point.
The Cheap factor cries are always amusing, there will always be the cheap range, but people will buy for the small form factor.
And, I know we all like to have a go at old Captain Cyborg, but just you wait when the implants work we will all be at it.
Hopefully the eye wear monitors will improve soon, and an air keyboard would be wild, or perhaps some type of glove, but they do have to work even if hard to master they have to be 'masterable'. Maybe sign language for a computer system would work.
Register
Netbooks take ten per cent of Euro PC market
First Gartner and now IDC has highlighted the rise of the Small, Cheap Computer as one of key product categories keeping the European PC market afloat. Laptops too are helping keep vendors' heads above water, and together with the SCCs helped shipments of all types of personal computer grow 27 per cent year on year during Q3, …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 13:13 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Acer Aspire One problems #
Acer may have taken a big chunk of the Laptot market but there is a defect with the Aspire One that makes it suffer from what is known as 'The Black Screen of Death'. Basically after about 3 weeks of use the laptot will not boot. It is down to a flakey BIOS and needs changing.
Unfortunately not many people know about this because nobody is reporting it on news sites, or at least I have not seen people reporting it. My one died after 3 weeks (exactly!) and I sent it back and got a replacement, but recently I discovered a discussion on Fedora Forums about it and it appears quite a few people have suffered from this issue. It has also been discussed on other forums.
From what I gather updating the BIOS solves the problem but the majority of users will be unable to do this!!!
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 13:31 GMT
Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware
@AC #
News to me.
I know two people with AA1s, both of whom have had 'em since August, both purchased in entirely different parts of the country. Neither has black-screened.
I do know of plenty of AA1 users who've tweaked their systems then got black screens during the start-up process. This is usually fixed with the Recovery CD supplied in the box, or by using the disc to make a Recovery USB Stick, which is what I did.
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 13:31 GMT
Chika
The BLACK Screen of Death?!? #
Somebody is really not all that good at thinking up new names for what appears to be a description of a PC that fails to start.
Or are we now to have the many-coloured rainbow of death now?
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 14:14 GMT
richard
wait for the apple version #
coming in january.....yippee!
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 14:14 GMT
Anonymous Coward
I like the Acer #
I bought an AA1 a month back, and while it does seem to have a fragile WiFi driver (MS XP Home, after waking from sleep, it will lose WiFi during the next session) I think it's a super machine.
I bought mine from John Lewis so it has a two year warranty - for the money I don't think you can go far wrong. :-)
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 18:43 GMT
Anonymous Coward
AA1 - a little beauty #
I've had an AA1 for a month or so now and other than the pain of learning new ways of doing stuff (Linpus version) it's great, does just what it says on the tin - small, cheap, light, quiet gorgeous. Just annoyed that I only purchased one as the price seems to have gone up on Amazon since then.
Posted Friday 17th October 2008 18:43 GMT
J
Wow... #
It's been only a year since the first Eee?? Wow, feels like it was so long ago...
Posted Saturday 18th October 2008 12:15 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Size matters. #
Miniaturisation is the way to go baby.
And if you can make a general purpose system smaller it will sell every time, it is just too useful. Size of a book is the main sell point.
The Cheap factor cries are always amusing, there will always be the cheap range, but people will buy for the small form factor.
And, I know we all like to have a go at old Captain Cyborg, but just you wait when the implants work we will all be at it.
Hopefully the eye wear monitors will improve soon, and an air keyboard would be wild, or perhaps some type of glove, but they do have to work even if hard to master they have to be 'masterable'. Maybe sign language for a computer system would work.
Posted Monday 20th October 2008 08:15 GMT
Nick Kew
Running on battery #
Any of them optimised for low power consumption? I'm thinking of things like ARM rather than Intel processor.
This topic is closed for new posts.