Pros
Above-average LCD for a netbook; speedy for price; HDMI output; playful design; very able Webcam.
Cons
Weak speakers; design will put off serious-minded users; annoying beeps when power cord is attached or detached
Key Specs
Processor: 1GHz AMD C-Series C-50 APU
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 500GB hard drive
Optical Drive: None
Screen: 11.6 inches (1,366x768 native resolution)
Graphics: Integrated ATI Radeon HD 6250 (on APU)
Weight: 3.2 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1x11.2x7.9 inches
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
The epic Story of the Netbook is still being written. It's not quite Hemingway (yet), but are you ready for the CliffsNotes version of the first few chapters?
Chapter One: Once upon a time, you could buy a cheap netbook for well under $400, but you got a really slow one. Chapter Two: Netbook makers made them better, but they charged about as much as full-size notebooks. Chapter Three: Eureka! At least one netbook maker finally got the formula right, and buyers on a budget were happy. That's the story so far.
That maker would be Acer. The company put one of AMD's low-power, low-end Fusion chips into an under-$400 netbook, and it produced a winning machine. The Aspire One AO722 might be the cheapest netbook we've seen that doesn't force you to make the sacrifices other netbooks at the same price demand. And that's a book we want to read.
At $379.99, the Aspire One delivers on three fronts. You get strong performance, a very good 11.6-inch display with higher resolution than most netbooks, and ATI Radeon HD 6250 graphics that provide far-better-than-average graphics acceleration. If you need a netbook with some video-playback skills, or even the ability to handle light media work—and you're on an austerity budget—this is the one.
Design
Take one look at the shell, and you can tell the Aspire One AO722 is a consumer-focused netbook. The aqua coloring of our test unit and the distinctive ripple design on the lid made the machine resemble water coming to life. Acer also offers an “espresso black” color choice that also has the distinctive ripple effect. We wouldn't expect business-minded users to find the design palatable in either color, but students and more casual buyers might go for it.
From top to bottom, the AO722 feels solidly built, but it’s not heavy. At 3.2 pounds and measuring 1x11.2x7.9 inches, it's highly portable. The size and heft make it easy to carry in a backpack or laptop bag.
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| Our test machine's sea-blue shell will turn off some users while catching the eye of others. (The wave pattern is not a sticker but a physical ripple.) |
The Aspire One AO722 has many of the ports you would expect on a netbook, plus one surprise extra. As for the standard stuff, you get three USB ports, a VGA-out connector, a Kensington cable-locking slot, an Ethernet jack, a power port, a headphone jack, and a microphone jack. (There's also a flash-card reader; it supports the SD, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and xD-PictureCard formats.) The one port we didn't expect at this price is a full-size HDMI-out port, which lets you display your computer's graphics on an HDMI-equipped monitor or HDTV, if desired.
On the inside, an adequately sized 500GB hard drive handles storage (it's a 5,400rpm model), and an 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter does the wireless-networking work.
Features
The Aspire One AO722's keyboard is full-size, but it feels just a little cramped, like those on most netbooks do. Here, it's because Acer's design left no space between the keys, unlike on Chiclet-style keyboards.
Although it's not the most comfortable keyboard we've used, we were able to type quickly and with good accuracy. The 3.2x1.6-inch touch pad below the keyboard is large enough considering the size of the machine, and it does accept multi-finger gesture input. A single bar below the touch pad is what you use for for mouse clicks. (It does the job, but we found it felt a little cheap.)
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| The keyboard on the AO722 is average for a netbook. Typing on it was accurate, if not exceptionally comfortable. |
The screen on this machine, framed by a glossy black bezel above the deck, is an 11.6-inch LCD. Acer calls this wide-format (16-to-9-ratio) screen a "CineCrystal display," and, for once, the hyperbolic name comes close to delivering on the promise, even on a small screen like this one. The panel is LED-backlit, and the native resolution—1,366x768—is high considering the screen size. The display is excellent for a netbook, with bright colors and crisp images. This is no doubt assisted by the ATI Radeon graphics on the Fusion chip; it made smooth HD-video playback possible. (We discuss the Fusion chip in more detail in the Performance section below.) We viewed a bunch of 720p videos on YouTube on this machine, and they looked great and played back without stuttering. (The machine, however, could not play 1080p videos without hiccups.)
Not so impressive, alas, were the speakers. They sit under the front lip of the computer, are quieter than they should be, and could not fill a medium-size room, even when pushed to their limits. Also, the sound quality was flat, with neither spoken words nor music registering much impact. We used the song “Coming Home” by Diddy Dirty Money for testing; it has strings, horns, piano, drums, and digital effects, but only the vocals really came out at full volume, indicating high treble and little to no bass.
When we listened to the audio through a good pair of headphones, it was dramatically better. Headphones are the way to go with this machine.
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| The right side of the AO722 is home to a flash-card reader, headphone and mic jacks, two USB ports, and a Kensington-lock slot. |
We were more impressed with the built-in Webcam. The Aspire One AO722 has a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) model embedded in the black bezel, above the screen. We were surprised that a VGA camera could deliver an image as good as this one did. Pictures and video showed nice color reproduction and accurate white balance. The cam even worked fairly well under low lighting, so long as we adjusted the position of the lid a bit as the lighting changed.
Performance
The main processor inside the Aspire One AO722 is an AMD C-Series C-50. AMD terms this chip an "APU" rather than a CPU; it's part of the company's Fusion family of chips, which all have the graphics-acceleration circuitry built right into the chip. (For more about this first wave of Fusion chips for laptops, check out our deep dive on Fusion,
The C-50 is a netbook-class processor that debuted as part of the first wave of Fusion chips early in 2011. The C-Series APU is special in that it uses very little power, compared with its higher-end brethren (9 watts, versus 18 to 45 watts), suiting it for light notebooks that require long battery life. The C-50 APU this netbook uses has two processing cores, allowing for workable performance for basic tasks, despite the low clock speed of 1GHz. (AMD also offers a C-30 APU, which is single-core but has a slightly higher clock speed of 1.2GHz.) We run three tests to gauge a netbook's processor performance. First up was our Cinebench 10 test, which pushes all available cores on the CPU to the limit while rendering a standard test image. The Aspire One AO722 scored a 1,267 on this test, well above the category average of 997. (In this case, our category average consists of all netbooks we've tested since January 2010.) In comparison, the $329 Samsung NC110, with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 processor, scored a very low 562, while the $479 HP Pavilion dm1 (equipped with a higher-end AMD Fusion APU, the dual-core, 1.6GHz E-350) scored a terrific 2,208. The Acer Aspire One AOD260, which is essentially a cousin to the AO722, scored 1,445 on this test, thanks to its 1.5GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor.
The left edge houses a power port, an Ethernet jack, the VGA output, a USB port, and an HDMI port. The last is handy for outputting to a larger screen.
Next, we ran our iTunes Conversion Test, in which the test machine does another processor-intensive task, converting 11 standard MP3 files to AAC format. The Aspire One AO722 did this job in 13 minutes and 58 seconds. That's considerably better than the Samsung NC110's time (18:37) and the Aspire One AOD260's (20:48). It did not beat the Pavilion dm1's time of 8:40, however, which is exactly what we'd expect given the difference in processors and price.
Our last CPU-centric trial was our Windows Media Encoder test, in which we convert a 3-minute-and-15-second video file to DVD-quality format. The Aspire One AO722 took 23 minutes and 11 seconds to complete the task, which is average for the netbook category. The Samsung NC110 completed the task in 26 minutes, while the dual-core Aspire AOD260 did it in 18:04. Again, the slightly costlier HP Pavilion dm1 came out on top, with a 14:39 conversion time.
To evaluate the 3D-graphics capabilities of the Aspire One AO722's zippy APU-based graphics circuitry (the ATI Radeon HD 6250), we ran our 3DMark 06 test. At its native resolution of 1,366x768, the AO722 earned excellent marks for a netbook, scoring 1,552, far above the netbook average of 470. For comparison's sake: The Samsung NC110 earned a 151, while the Aspire AOD260 scored 147 at native resolution. The Pavilion dm1, whose Fusion APU has AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics built in, earned a 2,240 at the same native resolution as the AO722's.
Even though the Aspire One AO722 is above-average in the graphics department for a netbook, that doesn't mean this machine is up to any sort of serious gaming. Zynga games such as CityVille and FarmVille on Facebook will work great on this machine, as well as other Flash-based games and some lightweight 3D games from Steam. More important, these graphics numbers indicate able video playback and the ability to touch up photos before posting them on your favorite social-media site.
A six-cell lithium-ion battery comes standard on the Aspire One AO722 in this $379.99 configuration. Our Battery-Rundown Test is tough; in it, we continuously stream video from Hulu.com until the battery conks out, with the portable's volume and screen-brightness levels at 50 percent. The AO722 lasted 4 hours and 8 minutes, just a few minutes less than the category average (4:17). To compare, the Samsung NC110 lasted 5:02 on this test, while the Aspire One AOD260 lasted 4:04. The Pavilion dm1 lasted 4:40. If you don’t sit around streaming video all day, like we did, you should get between six and seven hours on a single charge at medium brightness.
Conclusion
We did note one plus for frequent travelers with this netbook. It comes with Acer's one-year international traveler's limited warranty. That means you can get service and help in any country in which Acer has a repair facility. (You can find more about this warranty on Acer's site.)
The software Acer bundles with the Aspire One AO722 is a surprisingly helpful grab bag, with one exception. For those who need word processing and spreadsheets, there's the free, ad-supported version of Microsoft Office. You also get a platter of Acer utilities, including Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Video Conference Manager, and Acer ePower Management. (Those three do just what their names suggest.) The one exception in the preloaded software is the 60-day trial version of McAfee Total Protection, which is exceptionally intrusive, popping up reminders all the time.
For $379.99, the Acer Aspire AO722 is a great netbook option for those who plan to watch lots of streaming video or play mildly demanding Web-based games. All around, we like this netbook better than its closely priced cousin, the Aspire One AOD260, because of its better display and much better 3D graphics. It's a better netbook than the Samsung NC110, too, but bear in mind that that machine runs $50 cheaper.
The best alternative, though, is another AMD Fusion-based machine. If you're comfortable spending an additional $100 for a considerable bump up in performance and a better keyboard, the HP Pavilion dm1 is also worth a close look.
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