The Aspire One series of Netbooks have been really popular amongst the Acer’s laptop lineup and this is because the company has kept the prices really low. It also offers decent design and good construction. The latest Aspire One laptop to turn up in my labs was the Acer Aspire One D260-23797. This is one of the D260’s fixed configurations and each of them comes with a bit of different components. I really liked this Netbook for its small size, and thin-and-light design even for a ten inch Netbook. I will also praise the manufacturer for providing a decent sized keyboard and a good touch pad.

Acer Aspire One D260-23797 is priced at $329 and it is a mainstream Netbook. This is the first Netbook ever to have the new Intel Atom N475 processor. Previously, the N450 dominated the Netbook line up. This processor has a speed of 1.83 GHz as compared to N450′s 1.66GHz. But in my lab tests, I didn’t feel any boost in the performance. In fact, this Netbook was a bit sluggish as compared to others.

I won’t complain much about the speed here because there are serious speed limitations when it comes to Netbooks. They are recommended just for basic tasks like e-mail, Web surfing, etc. Anything other than that will quickly bring them down to heels. I would recommend you the Acer Aspire One D260-23797 if you are concerned about the weight and size. But, if battery life matters more, take a look at the Asus Eee PC 1018 which has a low cost and still looks really attractive.

I still can’t get over how small the Acer Aspire One D260-23797 is. The difference here is not much as compared to other ten inch Netbooks but in these machines, even a fraction is noticed easily. The D260 is cast in a dark businesslike gray skin. It has straight lines on the lid with minimal flash. Netbooks are mostly curvy these days but Acer decided to go for a buttoned down look. Open up the D260 and a gray keyboard will welcome you. The keys don’t have an island design like most of the Netbooks out there. The keys are closely put together and this might give lead to mishits. I had some initially but then I got used to it pretty fast.

The touch pad of the Acer Aspire One D260-23797 is really big considering the compact size of the Netbook. It is wider than what you usually see. I usually don’t like the rocker bar for mouse buttons, two separate buttons are preferred but I have given it up now as most of the Netbooks out there have a rocker bar.

Display of the Acer Aspire One D260-23797 is 10.1 inches big and you get a resolution of 1,024×600 pixels. Expensive Netbooks give you a resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. The screen is not as glossy as the ones seen on other Netbooks which is really good because there is no glare. The off angle viewing (both vertically and horizontally) too was iffy.

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