Just one gripe and it was huge. I say was because luckily a decent fix was found.
The issue was video screen resolutions offered by Acer on the Aspire One (10 inch model) included a useless 640X480, 800X600, and 1024X600; Yes! x600 not x768.
That awkward 1024x600 resolution prohibited me from using 3 major software applications I need to run every day; including Quick books, Photoshop's Image RAW, and any program requiring a 1024X768 screen resolution. That is a big list. I must say this was a bummer to discover after waiting so long for the products release date and spending $375 on a laptop that couldn't run my most used software. What's a poor boy to do? Google! What else. And the solution was found at Noda's Dev Blog .
The tool developed provides an array of features that saved my love affair with the Acer Aspire One. Without this tool or something like it, this laptop and i would have been in divorce court. The tool is Freeware and I was so happy with the product that I donated buck$ to the author's site.
The screen capture shown below reveals clues to the many options the programmer built into this tool. I can't imagine how Acer dropped the ball on this one. Besides the 3 resolutions shown, once the app was installed, the control panel video options inherited a full suite of previously missing options.
To Acer's credit, using an external monitor, you don't have the video restrictions imposed on the laptop screen. But the fix works and the only minor bother is having to move the mouse to the bottom /or/ top of the screen to scroll the video display into view. Now I can use Quick books, and most other programs requiring the x768 resolution height.
Features:
- no installation needed
- small memory footprint (~5Mo)
- complete fan management, with stopped/slow/auto fan modes
- support newest bios, from v0.3109 to v0.3305
- CPU speed management (XP only)
- fast screen resolution changes, with 1024×768 scrolled and downscaled modes (XP only)
- can enable/disable webcam/ethernet/wifi to reduce power usage
- can be started with windows automatically
- option to prevent HDD clicks
- show temperature & battery in tray icon
- customizable icons & colors via .ini file
- integrated ACPIEC driver patching to prevent log writing
end