Cramped keypad
Trackpad tends to get hot after prolonged use
The Acer Emachines 250 is a 10.1-inch netbook targeted at budget buyers who will most likely use the netbook for very basic office applications and accessing the internet. It’s no wonder then that the netbook comes with absolutely no frills attached, starting with the OS. This netbook arrived with a Linspire Linux Operating system but for the comparison test we uninstalled it and installed Windows XP Home Edition, to put it on par with the other netbooks in this test. The Acer Emachines 250 comes in a glossy black front panel which have notches which connect it to the body. When the netbook flap is opened, there is a distinct gap between the screen and the body. The body has a brush metal finish with a small mouse trackpad and a single click button. Status indicators are located on the top left and a power button is located on the top right hand side. There are limited ports on either sides along with the card slot. The keypad of the netbook is a huge let down. The keys are small in size and appear cramped. The tapering edges on all sides does not help and eats up a lot of space that could have otherwise been used a more spacious flat-topped keyboard. Typing on these keys is very problematic for someone who is used to the keys of a notebook. Also the mouse trackpad tends to get hot the netbook is used for a while, as the trackpad is merged with the body.
This netbook gave surprising quick read and write speeds in the real world tests. It took only 204 seconds to for a 4 GB sequential file transfer as compared to 270 seconds taken by the Acer A0751H netbook. Even the VOB to DivX conversion took only 255 seconds as compared to over 300 seconds taken by the Acer A0751h. The netbook is a steal at Rs 14,999 if you can excuse its poor keypad. The performance it offered was very good in this bracket of netbooks.