My Christmas Present

I know, I know, Christmas was two weeks ago but I have used that two weeks to thoroughly road test my Christmas present. It is an Acer Aspire One Netbook. Tutelidge here, first there was a laptop, some with a big 17" screen (I have one of those and it is wonderful, but at about 8 pounds). Then came the Notebook with it's 12" screen and then presto! it shrunk into a Netbook with a 9" screen. My little netbook is sapphire blue, has a 160GB HDD and 3 USB 2.0 ports. It utilizes Windows XP (thank heavens) and has built in wi-fi, and........it weighs just a hair over two pounds. In it's leather sleeve it is about as big as a John Grisham hardback. The only drawback, and I am told by several of my children that it is not a drawback is that there is no optical drive. No CD, no DVD just 3 USB ports for a myriad of thumb drives. they are so cheap now that I went out and bought a half a dozen 4GB and a couple of 8GB ones. I keep my photos, documents and other stuff downloaded from my desktop on them. The wi-fi works seamlessly and if all of my neighbors (and the college across the street) hadn't encrypted their wireless networks I could piggyback off of theirs all day and night. The screen is bright and with the new Intel Atom processor it is surprisingly fast. The only small downside is the 2 hour maximum in battery mode. For me it is much easier to check emails and surf the web on this little jewel than to do it on my Blackberry. Plus I can write a document (the keyboard is 92% of a regular keyboard), so even my fat fingers can manage. I can even whip together a PowerPoint while having coffee and a scone. All of this for under $350! I am happy.