PentAzon: Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue Netbook

Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life

Netbook Computers

Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life

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Intel Atom N450 Processor 1.66GHz
1GB DDR2 RAM
160GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
10.1-Inch Screen, GMA
Windows 7 Starter, 8 hours Battery Life

netbook computers

Acer AO532h-2588 comes with these high level Specs. Intel Atom Processor N450, Windows 7 Starter, 10.1-Inch WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite LED Display, Mobile Intel NM10 Express Chipset, Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, 1024MB DDR2 Memory, 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM), Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader, Acer InviLink 802.11b/g/Draft-N Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, Built-In Webcam, Two Built-in Stereo Speakers, 3 - USB 2.0 Ports, 6-cell Li-ion Battery (4400 mAh), 2.76 lbs. | 1.25 kg (system unit only)Aspire One AO532h: Go Anywhere Mobility Browse the Web, check email, share photos, keep up with social networks, listen to music and enjoy a wide variety of entertainment with the Aspire One AO532h, which features a small compact design that you can take anywhere. Combining the power of the latest Intel Atom N450 processor and NM10 Express chipset with a 6-cell battery, this Aspire One AO532h model (AO532h-2588) in onyx blue provides up to 8 hours of battery life on the go--enough for a

List Price: $ 299.99 Price: $ 299.99

Customer Reviews

391 of 419 people found the following review helpful

Excellent Computer, Make Sure Yours Will Accept 2gb, January 26, 2010

MWebb (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Acer AO532h-2223 10.1-Inch Matrix Silver Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life (Personal Computers)

October 2010 update:

The review is now woefully out of date.

Please look instead at the just-released Aspire Atom Dual Core Acer Aspire One AOD255-1549 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black which has a dual core instead of single core Atom processor. Same great battery life, but much better performance. It's slightly more expensive (at least during the introduction, expect prices to drop in 3 months) but should handle Hulu much better (less stuttering/higher resolution/bigger window size). Or if you don't mind a smaller Hulu window/lower resolution, the N450 single core version is an updated bargain - Acer Aspire One AOD255-2509 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black. For only more, the "269" model has a much more useful 250 gb hard drive - Acer Aspire One AOD255-2691 10.1-Inch Netbook - Diamond Black. I recommend spending that extra for the bigger hard drive. I store my music and video collection on my netbook, use it for travel, and quickly fill up the hard drive - 160 gb isn't enough for me anymore.

Also if video is your top priority, more than battery life, the recent Acers with the AMD Athlon II Neo chip and Radeon graphics are reportedly much, much better in terms of performande, but batter life drops to 3-4 hours (Acer may be winding this model down already precisely for this reason) - Acer Aspire AO521-3782 10.1-Inch Netbook (Antique Brass). I recommend searching for "netbook AMD Neo" to see what's available with this new generation AMD chip before you buy.

Please read any review of computers (especially in the rapidly evolving netbook market) more than 3 months old with a grain of salt. Also you owe it to yourself to investigate the Apple iPad, many potential netbook purchasers are buying them instead. A comparison of the two is beyond the scope of this product review, but you need to be aware of this alternative.

_________________________original review below, if you buy one used at a great price:

I deleted my first review which knocked this new netbook from Acer with a 3 Star review, for failing to accept a 2gb memory upgrade - I was told by Acer's overseas on-line warranty service this netbook couldn't even accept more than one 1gb.

When I posted my experience as the earlier, deleted review here, the Acer product manager from San Jose jumped into the discussion to affirm that this netbook IS designed to take customer installed 2gb upgrades, and that the warranty support line adviser was simply wrong. Since my particular unit wouldn't take memory modules that had already been proven to work in my other netbooks (including another N450-based netbook) it was concluded that my particular unit was defective. The Acer product manager reported that all of his production samples in San Jose accepted standard 2gb upgrades. One other reader later reported that his unit wouldn't take an upgrade either, also using known good memory pulled from another netbook. So basically it appears that there is a glitch in some, but not all, units that Acer is shipping. Based on my past experience with Acer (I've owned 5 or 6) and faith in Amazon's return policy, I would have no problem ordering this ao532h, with the caveat that if you intend to upgrade the memory, try doing it right away while your unit is still within the Amazon returns period. Please note that my sample ran fine with the included 1gb module from Acer, and that upgrading the BIOS per the warranty line instructions did not allow my sample to accept either of the two 2 gb replacement modules I had on hand.

So this review is to confirm that this netbook IS designed to accept a 2gb memory module upgrade, and to caution you to check your unit for compatibility. The 2gb memory module spec'd at Crucial dot com specifically for the ao532h is as follows:

Part #: CT1165194 * DDR2 PC2-5300 * CL=5 * Unbuffered * NON-ECC * DDR2-667 * 1.8V * 256Meg x 64 *

The crucial dot com price is about higher than a similar spec'd module from Crucial which is shown by Amazon on this product page as a recommended accessory. Any generic DDR2, PC5300, SoDimm with 667 speed should work, but if you want to be cautious, make sure you get the exact same part number shown above (CT1165194) until Acer provides additional advice on this issue.

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Comments (30)

125 of 131 people found the following review helpful

An Excellent Value, February 6, 2010

Carolyn Buckingham "Netbook Phreak" (Sandusky, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life (Personal Computers)

I bought mine from a local retailer for about the same price. I've owned a dozen laptops and even the 14" ones are too big and bulky for me. I love the portability of this machine and for the price, it's a really good value.

I highly recommend putting in a 2GB RAM module (I used an 800MHz one) and, if you like, a larger hard drive. The extra RAM gives Windows 7 room to breathe and speeds things up noticeably. The Starter Edition of Windows 7 is too limiting for me, I upgraded to another edition of Windows 7. After you upgrade the RAM and the OS to a higher edition of Windows 7, install the Acer VGA driver for Windows 7 and then you'll have the proper screen resolution and you can run in Aero mode.

I have run Ubuntu Linux (both the Netbook Remix and the standard one), Windows XP Pro, and Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit on my 532h and they all ran just fine. Stick to 32-bit operating systems on this model since it can't take more than 2GB of RAM (like all netbooks).

For web surfing, I use Google Chrome and it runs much faster than IE8 or Firefox on this machine. Chrome is a good choice because now you can add extensions, like ad blockers, to it. Basically, if you're like most people and 90% of what you do on a computer is social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), browsing the web, word processing, email and other simple tasks -- well, this machine is all you need.

Finally, remember, it's a Netbook. Not a desktop or even a regular laptop. If you want to do any serious gaming, forget it, but it will run some games. There are netbook websites that are very helpful and some of them even have game recommendations for netbooks.

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122 of 128 people found the following review helpful

Can't Beat What You Get For The Price, January 19, 2010

Esther Moskowitz "smart rox" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue Netbook - Up to 8 Hours of Battery Life (Personal Computers)

I strongly disagree with a previous review of this netbook. I also purchased this model number from a different vendor (I just needed it right away) and I have to say that you get a lot for what you are paying. True--it is not as fast as a dual-core processor laptop but that's the point--it doesn't need to be! I surfed the web, I watched streaming video on both Netflix and Hulu, I typed a document and you know what? It all worked great! What else can you ask for? Any complaints? Yeah, it doesn't make me toast in the morning. I don't understand what people are yelling about!

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