Acer Aspire One D150

While the 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One AOD150 netbook is not without some faults, reviews say that it would be hard to find as capable a netbook for a lower price. Its Intel Atom processor, generous 160 GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM make its performance competitive with netbooks costing considerably more. The 10.1-inch screen is clear and bright experts say. A keyboard that's smaller than the ones found on other 10.1-inch netbooks is a notable negative, though most say it's not bad overall. Critics aren't as kind toward the touch pad, and nearly all say that it is terrible. The six-cell battery provides adequate run times. If you want to save about $30, versions of the Acer Aspire One netbook with a three-cell battery are available, but runtimes will be notably shorter. If you have more to spend, the Asus Eee PC 1000HE (*Est. $385) has a slightly more powerful processor, an excellent screen, a more comfortable keyboard and battery life that's near the top of its class, though it is a bit heavier to tote around.

The Acer Aspire One AOD150 has been extensively reviewed. You can find detailed, testing-backed reports on the Acer netbook at Laptop Magazine and PCMag.com, and nearly as good (though not as detailed) reporting at CNET and PC World. ConsumerReports.org chimes in with its typical testing-based report, but discussion is so thin as to be nearly useless. About.com performs minimal testing, but does a good job of putting features into context. Go to Amazon.com to read hundreds of user reviews of netbooks.