Acer recently launched a new 11.6” Netbook named Aspire One 725. This Netbook is the perfect choice for the people who look for a budget and compact laptop which they can carry easily wherever they go. As its name says “netbook’, obviously you cannot do anything else apart from web browsing and watching/listening movies/music. But let me tell you that Aspire One 725 is powerful enough for the same. Lets have a look at its configuration, design, performance etc one by one.
Design:
Display:
Weighing just bit more than 1KG, Aspire 725 Netbook is very light weight, compact and packed with beautiful glossy black exterior body. It has a small but not too small 11.6 inch LED-backlit TFT LCD display with Acer CineCrystal technology offering 1366 x 768 resolutions. There is also an integrated Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam on the top of the screen providing 720p HD audio/video recording.
Keyboard:
The keyboard provided with Aspire 725 is a Chiclet keyboard without backlit. Though there are enough space between the keys, it is not as much comfortable to type as we use to have on our larger laptops but that is obvious because it is well designed as per the size of the Netbook. Also we noticed that few keys such as Enter, Del, and Escape are smaller than their usual size. There is no separate number pad, but they have placed the Arrow keys very smartly right where it should be. Also Function keys are placed nice with lots of options where you can access WiFI, Bluetooth, Numlock, etc whereas Volume up/down and brightness can be controlled with the FN + Arrow keys.
Touchpad:
The Touchpad provided is quite good with good gliding. Not too small then the larger laptops. As far as right and left click is concerned, they have provided a single bar on the touchpad for the same but it works for both. Overall, there was no problem using the Touchpad.
Connectivity Ports:
Acer has provided quite good optiosn for connectivity in this tiny Netbook. On the right side you get 2 USB 2.0 Ports, headphone Jack, Multi-in-1 card reader and DC-in jack for AC adapter. And on the left side you get 1 USB 3.0 Port, HDMI port with HDCP support, 1 VGA Port and Ethernet (RJ-45) port. These VGA port provides very good resolutions even on a large screen monitor whereas using USB 3.0 port you getter pretty good transfer rate as we have shown in our Video review.
Performance:
Aspire One 725 is powered by AMD Dual Core C-60 1GHz processor which is good enough for web browsing and office suite work. Even it can be considered good for watching high definition videos. But doing more than that on this Netbook will surely disappoint us. Now a days there are many smartphones and tablets that comes with the same power of processor. But still comparing it with those smartphones will not be right because Aspire 725 is running with 2GB DDR3 RAM which can be upgraded upto 4GB and offers 500GB SATA hard drive with which we can carry enough media (movies, videos/songs) and office docs.
Browsing:
Being a Netbook, web browsing obviously is very good. It comes with default Internet Explorer 9 whereas you can also install other web browsers of your choice such as Chrome, opera or Firefox. Screen size is enough for viewing any large website as shown below in the image.
Connectivity:
We get very good connectivity options with this Netbook including fast WiFi with Atheros AR5BWB222 Wireless Network Adapter. It also supports Bluetooth 4.0 for connecting your smartphones and other Bluetooth devices. WiFi and Bluetooth, both can be turned On or off with Fn + F3 key. Other than this, there are 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0, External VGA port and a HDMI port to watch your movies on Big Screen in HD resolution.
Battery Life:
Aspire One 725 comes with 37 Wh 2500 mAh 4-cell Li-ion battery that provides upto 4 hours of battery life whereas they have mentioned it 5.7 hours on their Offical website.
Specification:
Operating System
- Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor / Speed
- AMD C-Series dual-core processor C-60 (1 MB L2 cache, 1 GHz with Turbo CORE Technology up to 1.33 GHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, 9 W)
Core Logic Chipset
- AMD A68M Fusion Controller Hub
System memory
- Single-channel 2GB DDR3 SDRAM support with one soDIMM module
Display
- 11.6″ HD 1366 x 768 resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal LED-backlit TFT LCD
- Mercury-free, environment-friendly
- 16:9 aspect ratio
Graphics
- AMD Radeon HD 6290 Graphics with 256 MB of dedicated system memory, supporting Unified Video Decoder 3 (UVD3), OpenCL 1.1, OpenGL 3.1, OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft DirectX 11
- Dual independent display support
- 16.7 million colors
Storage
- 500 GB SATA Hard Drive
Audio
- High-definition audio support
- Two built-in stereo speakers
- MS-Sound compatible
- Built-in digital microphone
Communication
- Acer Crystal Eye HD webcam
- Acer InviLink Nplify 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
- Bluetooth 4.0
I/O Ports:
- Multi-in-1 card reader
- USB 3.0 port
- Two USB 2.0 ports
- HDMI port with HDCP support
- External display (VGA) port
- Headphone/speaker jack
- Microphone-in jack
- Ethernet (RJ-45) port
- DC-in jack for AC adapter
Pros:
- 11.6 inch screen being a Netbook.
- Enough RAM and Storage
- Touch Pad and Chiclet keyboard
- Easy to Carry
Cons:
- 1GHz APU.
- Not compatible for Gaming
