Not a toy

Santa delivered the Acer Aspire One he'd promised for Christmas to my daughter and her boyfriends house in Sale.

When we were over there last week, it was sat waiting for me. Should I be a good boy and leave it until Christmas Day to open? Well it wasn't as if it was going to be wrapped in fancy paper and in any case if it had been faulty I would have to return it to England. It made sense to at least check it out. Actually that was all I could do because Laura and Dave didn't have their ADSL connection set up.

Once I had the notebook back in Spain though I could connect to the Internet, apply any updates and check out the wireless card inside.

Those of you who think that £170 doesn't buy you much would be pleasantly surprised at what the Acer has to offer. It feels sturdy and well constructed, the keyboard has a nice feel to it, the screen is clear and bright and it is very quick to start up ready for work. It comes with a webcam, a microphone and built in speakers all ready to go.

The downside is the trackpad which is small with mouse keys either side. It is a little tricky to get used to. A cheap notebook mouse is a better solution.

The other issue for some might be the Linux operating system which uses a command line interface for many of the system related tasks. However, if all you want to do is use the machine with its pre-installed software this is not a problem.You get Firefox to browse the Internet, an email client, a full office suite, a variety of games, a media player etc etc.

You get an awful lot for your £170.