acer aspire 1410 promoUpdate: Acer has released an updated version of this notebook with a dual core Celeron processor and Windows 7 Home Premium. You can read my review of that model here.

The Acer Aspire 1410 is a bit larger than your typical netbook thanks to its 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and nearly full sized keyboard. But with a growing number of netbook makers putting out 11.6 inch models, it’s not the screen that makes this laptop stand out. It’s the processor and chipset.

When the netbook revolution began in late 2007 and early 2008 netbooks were small, light, and cheap computers with a variety of Intel and VIA processors, running Windows or Linux. Over the past year so many Intel Atom powered mini-laptops have been released with Windows XP that it’s easy to forget that there are other options. The Acer Aspire 1410 is a good reminder. At around $450, it’s priced competitively with most netbooks, but it has a faster Intel Core 2 Solo processor, GMA 4500MHD graphics, and still weighs about 3.1 pounds, which makes it lighter than some Intel Atom powered netbooks.

The model featured in this review has a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, Bluetooth, and 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi. It has a 6 cell, 4400mAh battery. It’s available from B&H for $449.

Design

The Acer Aspire 1410 measures 11.2″ x 8″ x 1.2″ at its thickest point. At the front, the laptop is just 0.9 inches thick with the lid closed. It weighs about 3.1 pounds. All of which is to say, it’s barely any bigger than your typical 10 inch netbook, and it’s actually lighter than some.

side open 2

Around the sides of the computer you’ll find 3 USB ports, a flash card reader, Ethernet jack, VGA port, and an HDMI output.

left closed

There are also headphone and mic ports, and it’s worth pointing out that the mic jack actually has a metal rim, which should make it a bit sturdier than the cheap plastic jacks found on most computers. Of course, you’re more likely to use the headphone jack on a regular basis, and that’s made of plastic.

right closed

The lid has a glossy black finish which will show fingerprints, but it’s not the worst offender I’ve seen.

back off

On the bottom of the unit you’ll find two panels that can be removed to upgrade the hard drive, RAM, or WiFi module. There are two RAM slots, which means you can upgrade the laptop to 4GB by picking up a 2GB stick. The model reviewed here came with a single 2GB stick occupying one of the slots.

front closed

The speakers are located just under the front of the keyboard and there are two hardware switches on the front of the unit for turning the WiFi and Bluetooth on and off.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is pretty much a full sized keyboard. The keys are nice and large with a little space between them, and the keyboard stretches almost from one end of the chassis to the other.

keyboard

My one and only complaint about the arrow and Page Up and Down keys are crammed into a fairly tiny space in the bottom right corner. The more you use the keyboard, the more you get used to this configuration, which is similar to the layout on Samsung netbooks. But I often have a hard time hitting the Page Up and Down keys in a hurry. The arrow keys, which also double as volume and screen brightness keys, are a bit easier to use.

I took a 2 minute typing test at TypingTest.com to see how this keyboard stacks up against others I’ve used, and I was able to type about 95 words per minute with 98% accuracy. That definitely makes this one of the better keyboards I’ve used, although I find that keyboard layout can be a matter of taste. You may find other keyboards more comfortable depending on what you are used to. For instance, the keys on the Acer Aspire 1410 are all flat, and you may be more comfortable with concave keys.

touchpad

The touchpad is nothing too special, but it gets the job done. The palm rest area of the laptop features a brushed metal finish, while the touchpad is smooth. From a distance, it’s hard to see where the palm wrest ends and the touchpad begins, but you can feel it ever so slightly when your finger moves from one area to the other. The touchpad has a scroll area on the right side. You can also use multitouch gestures such as placing two fingers on the touchpad to scroll or pinching to zoom in some applications.

There are two distinct buttons below the touchpad for right and left clicks, and they work quite well.

Display

Aside from the processor and graphics performance, the thing that sets this laptop apart from your typical netbook is the 11.6 inch, 1366  x 768 pixel display. And overall, it’s just about the perfect size and resolution for an ultraportable.

I’ve used several 10 inch or smaller netbooks with 1280 x 720 or 1366 x 768 pixel displays, and I’ve invariably gotten a headache after staring at the screen too long. To be fair, the problem is with the operating system and software, not the screen itself. But when using Windows Vista XP on a 10 inch netbook, the text tends to be super-sharp and difficult to read from a comfortable distance.

front open

The 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, on the other hand, was sharp, but not too sharp. Text and pictures were crisp and clear, and video looked great, but we’ll get into that more in the performance section.

The screen is glossy, which means that it turns into a bit of mirror in brightly lit settings, especially if the display is turned off.

Performance

The Acer Aspire 1410 packs a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor  and GMA 4500MHD graphics. And while the clock speed of a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor may be higher, the SU3500 CPU is significantly faster for most tasks. And the integrated graphics can handle tasks that would make a typical netbook choke.

  • The laptop had no problem playing 720p or 1080p video from the hard drive, which explains why there’s an HDMI port on the side of the unit.
  • It performed beautifully with an older real-time strategy game called Age of Mythology (video at the link)
  • The Acer Aspire 1410 was 2-3 times faster than an Intel Atom powered netbook when it came to CPU-intensive tasks like compressing audio and video files.

In terms of everyday use, the laptop just feels more responsive than a typical netbook when it comes to running multiple applications simultaneously or opening up a web browser with a dozen or more tabs and flipping between them — something that’s made easier to do by the computer’s high resolution display.

But there is one thing that’s very netbook-like about this computer’s performance: Flash video. The netbook currently ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, and when I installed the Adobe Flash Player and tried watching high quality video from sites including YouTube and Hulu, the laptop had trouble whenever I blew the video up to full screen mode. If you’re content with watching your video in a small window, you’ll be all set. But while it’s much faster than an Intel Atom CPU, the SU3500 isn’t exactly a bleeding edge processor. And it’s not powerful enough to pump out high quality Flash video smoothly on a high definition display.

I was able to improve Flash performance by installing Windows 7 and using Google Chrome as my web browser. But even under these conditions, some Flash video playback was choppy.

Now, there are three solutions for this. One, you can wait for Adobe to release an updated version of Flash that is either less resource heavy or which uses GPU acceleration, which could happen sometime in 2010. Or you could hold out for a low voltage processor that performs better. Or you can lower your expectations for Flash and just move on.

Incidentally, high definition Silverlight video played perfectly in fullscreen mode.

webcam

The VGA webcam has pretty sharp picture quality and worked great for a test call I made using Skype. But for some reason the image had a cloudy/milky look whether I was using Skype or the included Acer webcam utility. Update: It turns out there was a tiny piece of plastic covering the webcam that I didn’t notice. When you remove it, the image quality is excellent.

The Acer Aspire One fan does get audible, especially when the CPU usage is high. And the bottom of the laptop gets a little warm during extended use. But it’s not the loudest or hottest computer I’ve handled, and it certainly doesn’t get uncomfortably hot.

The speakers are reasonably loud for an ultraportable, but if you plan to blast tunes from this laptop you might want to invest in some headphones or external speakers.

Software

The laptop ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, which runs reasonably well on the hardware. But one of the first things I did upon receiving the laptop was to install Windows 7 to see if I could get Flash video content to play more smoothly. And once Windows 7 was installed, I found myself rarely visiting the Windows Vista partition because Windows 7 just seemed generally more responsive. It’s hard to say how much of this was due to the updated operating system and how much was due to the bloatware that ships with Windows Vista.

So while I didn’t test most of these applications extensively, here’s a partial list of the software that comes preinstalled:

  • Acer eRecovery Managment for creating backup and system restore discs
  • Convesoft Orion messenger
  • Acer Crystal Eye webcam
  • Acer GameZone
  • Carbonite online backup trial
  • CyberLink PowerDVD
  • EgisTec MyWinLocker
  • eSobi v2
  • Google Desktop
  • GridVista
  • Microsoft Office 2007 60 day trial
  • Microsoft Works

Battery

The US version of this laptop has a 6 cell, 4400mAh battery. Acer calls it a 6 hour battery, but I wasn’t able to get it to run for longer than 5 hours. That’s more run time than you’ll get from most Intel Atom powered netbooks with 3 cell batteries, but some netbooks with 6 cell batteries can run for twice as long.

It’s also worth noting that I got significantly better battery performance in Windows Vista than Windows 7. It’s not clear if this is due to differences in the operating systems or if Acer has loaded some battery utilities for Windows Vista that I didn’t notice. I did a clean install of Windows 7, so no Acer software was loaded in that environment.

battery

I performed two tests using each operating system. First, I tried a real-world test where I used the computer until it ran out of juice and shut down. And then I ran the Battery Eater Pro test which taxes the CPU continuously until the battery dies. Here are the results:

  • Windows 7 real world test: 4.5 hours
  • Windows 7 Battery Eater test: 2.5 hours
  • Windows Vista real world test: 5 hours
  • Windows Vista Battery Eater test: 3 hours, 18 minutes

I’m hopeful that if and when Acer releases a Windows 7 version of this laptop the company will optimize the software to improve battery life under the operating system.

Verdict

The Acer Aspire 1410 strikes an excellent balance between power, performance, price, and battery life. It can’t do everything a more powerful laptop can. But at $449, this laptop is priced competitively with a netbook, and it can certainly handle a number of tasks that are beyond the reach of a typical netbook like playing 1080p video or some modern video games.

side open 1

The battery life could be better, and some netbook fans may decide that an 11.6 inch laptop is just too large to be truly portable. But during the two weeks that I’ve been testing the Aspire 1410, I’ve come to rely on it as a workhorse laptop that can handle almost any task I can throw at it. the Aspire 1410 has become the first laptop I grab whether I’m about to run out of the house, or just to the living room for some light web surfing.

Asus, Samsung, Dell, and a number of other companies plan to launch or have already released laptops that are similarly sized and which use similar Intel Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) processors. And while I don’t see them completely replacing 10 inch netbooks that can run for 10 hours or more and fit into a small handbag, I do think that the Acer Aspire 1410 shows that there is a niche between netbooks and full sized, full priced laptops. And I’m excited to see this niche start to flesh out.

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94 replies on “Acer Aspire 1410 review”

  1. hola, ya tengo un año con mi acer 1410 y no e podido encontar la ccamara me podrias ayudar?

  2. After using almost a year now, I dropped it for the first time. It fell from a meter high with the screen open and facing the floor. Just like that was not enough to crack the screen, I also pulled the cord with my feet and it dropped super fast on its open screen. What I had? Not one little scratch, everything works perfectly. See my below thoughts on this computer and add this my this latest review on its robustness. Phew!

  3. OK I’m a bit late to the party, but I got the 1410 a few months ago, I run adobe cs5 suite on it, NO PROBLEMS, I tie it into a second monitor and no problems, (though I would love to get better resolution on the second monitor, audio is a bit weak but its netbook size so what can you expect. GREAT value for the money I love this machine, its so light I can carry it all day anywhere, I’ve gone a long long time with the battery I think more than 6 hours… Bummer I just missed the new updated version, but I’m happy all the same!

  4. Hi,
    I’ve just recuperated my Acer Aspire 1410 from the reparation for a screen deficiency, and now the touchpad is blocked! When I press Fn+F7, nothing happens. I’m fed up to go to the shop where I bought it. Could you give me a quick solution, please?
    Thanks,
    Pauline.

  5. hi, how i do replace the hard drive on this laptop aspire 1410, thank you for your support

  6. Great computer not a waist of money you will love it battery is great lots of ram and Bluetooth is an excellent touch

  7. Great review. And thanks especially for the comment about the plastic covering the webcam lens. I didn’t realize that it was there,and merely thought that the camera performance was mediocre.

  8. I have this one and I love it (running Arch Linux though, didn’t like Vista ^^ plus I get almost 6 hours of battery life when running linux).
    I wouldn’t really call it a netbook though, since it doesn’t have an atom processor. I bought it because I wanted a small laptop, but not a netbook and with fullsize keyboard, and I got that, so I’m happy. 🙂

  9. gostaria de saber se esse modelo tem bluetoothDigite seu comentário aqui.

    1. Não tem módulo Bluetooth habilitado.
      Bluetooth is not available.

  10. this computer is the best net book i have ever seen.
    I like to play counter strike, battlefield, portal, and loads of other games, and this pc can run almost every game. it can even run
    battlefield bad company 2. It cant play Arma 2,but then most computers cant.

  11. I am on a trip to the UK. I am trying to determine whether I can plug into wall to recharge my Acer1410. The power is 240 Volts in England and in North America its 110 volts.

    Thanks,
    Kelly

  12. Best portable pc ever had, smallest as well. I am coming from a Vaio 15.6`, but I don’t miss it at all. It is perfect. The only downside is that i have only a celeron 723, but even this works great for anything, except hard gaming. Otherwise it plays perfect bluerays rip, etc. But I would recommend to get at least Celeron 743 or SU3500 if u are really looking for excellent performance.
    I also have a 20` external display whenever I want to watch a movie on a bigger screen.

    I use it as my main pc now, and I really love it.

  13. Thanks for the great review Brad! I just picked up one of these bad boys the other day and absolutely LOVE it!! I have had about 5 or so netbooks in the past couple years beginning with the MSI Wind way back in the beginning of the availability of the 10″ screens. My most recent being the HP Mini 210. I actually really liked the fit and finish of the HP but still found it a bit too cramped to become my most used notebook. I ended up selling that one like I have the rest of my other netbooks and went looking for something that I could use as a replacement for my aging Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook.

    I decided to take a look at the 11.6″ class of notebooks as my choice system. After a ton of looking around I had narrowed the search down to a few select notebooks. Most of them being Acer’s. I had an Acer 3935 in the past and really liked their systems. It was either going to be an Acer 1810T or the 1410. After reading your review on the Acer 1410 multiple times I decided to go ahead and pick up 1410 as I found it for a pretty great price online and the 1810T was just too much money to justify.

    I am happy to say that this is finally the notebook that I have been looking for. It is a perfect size for me, very small and compact enough to take anywhere I would like, decent battery life and a very good build to boot. The screen on it is perfect as well. I always found the 1024×600 screens a bit annoying that they could not show enough information as I would like. But the 1366×768 is PERFECT. I also really like how they integrated the battery nicely into the case without having it stick out like a tumor like on so many others out there. This is really a top quality build as well and the faux aluminum finish on the palm rests is a nice touch. I have been pleased with the battery life as well and also the speediness of the C2S (it runs laps around the Atoms out there!). I immediately did a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro and added and extra 2GB stick of ram that I had from my 210 as well and that has also helped out in the quickness of everything.

    It’s really sad that Acer has decided to cripple this configuration in their recent releases of the 1410. They are obviously trying to get people to pony up the extra cash for the 1810.

    Overall, I definitely recommend this system to all people looking for a great laptop to be able to take with them and not have to be frustrated of the slowness of the Atom. If you can still find one out there, I would definitely recommend grabbing one.

  14. Hello , first of all i would like to say that this was the best review i could find about this little gadget that i’m thinking to buy because it’s clearly a brilliant little thing that can handle quite a handful . Second of all , for all of you that say “it doesn’t do that” , “it’s unable to do that” regarding the video card , please check this out : https://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

    It clearly states that in some cases 4500MHD beats HD3200 from ATI and also if you want to crank up the volume you can use this : https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/2750/gmabooster_improving_intel_gma_igp_netbook_performance/index2.html

    I would also like to mention the fact that i’ve played C&C 3 Tiberium Wrath on a crappy Aspire 5220 with a Celeron proc , 2 Gigs or RAM and a 945 chipset of Intel GMA on low settings , crappy graphics , but fluently so i guess this little machine can do a lot better . Plus the low resolution helps with graphic performance .

    1. Forgot to mention , that even if the HD3200 would be better overall , the NEO processor is just an equivalent of the old XP2200+ that we used to have back ’02 , so simply for that idea , i wouldn’t go near it , only if they crank up the L2 capacity … even the dual core model for these price ranges are pretty slow against Intel .

      1. The Neo is equal to the xp2200+? How are you figuring that. Even Atom processors are better than P4’s and Pentium M’s. The dual cores are not pretty slow against Intel, they are practically equal. The single core Neo lags behind the dual core CULVs but still ahead of the Atom

  15. Hello,

    I want to thank you to the reviewer, who produced the most comprehensive review on the web, on aspire 1410.

    I have recently bought this laptop and very happy about. Many things on the review are valid for my laptop too.

    I have just wanted to share one experience of mine with others,
    I am able to watch everything online full screen through Google Chrome flawlessly. (Namely I have been watching bbc iplayer) I have not checked the HD version, but not very hopeful about its performance.

    Coincidentally, I have been trying to operate a 1080p (Full HD) video file on mkv (Matroshka) format on aspire 1410. I would like to suggest all CORE AVC codec for all h264 related video files. It plays 720p files flawlessly. ( I have got the tip from the following website https://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=83429) When I say flawlessly, I mean it, please try and share your experience with others too.

    1080p files are also working but graphics lag too much.

    Regards,

  16. I bought this unit with WIN 7 installed and love it. The only peoblem I had was that the battery discharged extremely fast. I called Acer and they ordered a new battery for me that took a few months to get due to back order. I assume they knew about the battery problem(?) Anyway, the new battery appears to work longer but within the time span you indicated. I usually use AC most of the time so this is not a major poroblem. I have used it on teaching assignments with PowerPoint and it works admirably. Overall, a nice unit.

  17. hello. im planning to buy Aspire 1410 soon but i dont know much about laptop. can this laptop give a good quality of images when i play online game such as maplestory?

  18. I bought a as1410-8414. Supports 64-bit Windows Seven?
    Please someone answer me.

  19. Did anyone metion the SPIF output. The 3.5mm headphone jack is dual purpose. It is also a digital fiberoptic output. You just need to change the audio setting to digital out. The fiberoptic cable when plug into a reciever with fiber optic inputs is great. Ypu do have to mess with the sampling settings to the maximum campatability as well. Music videos look and sound awsome on the 55″ screen. Pandora is great as well.

  20. Hi

    I bought accer 1410 intel celeron 1.3 processor. I just want to know that is it possible to update of processor to dual core processor?

    Please reply me Thanks

  21. can someone help me out. my bluetooth seem to have a problem. Is it that this netbook didn’t come with the bluetooth drivers?

    1. Mine does not have a bluetooth unit inside. There is a slot inside but it is empty. You can buy one on Ebay for about $20 or buy a mini USB bluetooth for $20. The USB unit would come with drivers.

  22. Manufacturers originally had restrictions on the size of screen they could use
    why? beause that would seperate the segment from mobile pc’s, and not canabalize it, and also not confuse folks that would be very upset when they found out their “laptop” sucked… because in all honesty, an netbook is cool… but dont try to call it a laptop

    with the netbook segment more develped, and atom performance increasing, manufacturers have been pressuring Intel to let them build it on a larger display… they have even gone as far as have vga outputs, which was originally prohibited… but now that the graphics capabilities have grown, so has the approved uses

  23. thank you, this was very good. question: when testing battery life with Vista, did you turn off all extra graphics (ie aero)

  24. I just got this Acer 1410 , with windows 7 installed, it is much faster than iI thought. Internet works fast, good graphics. I think $399 is a very good buy and for travel fantastic.

  25. I really like the way you do netbook reviews. I think I’m going to follow a similar format (if you don’t mind) so I’m giving people who come to my site information in a way I know they already like. I’m on the fence about picking one of these up. I want to ditch my 1000HE but if I’m going to pay $400 – $500 I want to make sure I’m not wasting my time…or my money.

    Thanks again Brad.

  26. Help! I have the same question. I purchased this for my teenager as a Christmas gift. I need to load Norton, Microsoft Office and printer software from CDs onto it. I don’t want to pay for expensive downloads when I have extra copies on disk for free. My desktop USB’s are hard to get at, and I don’t feel comfortable figuring out how to use my disk drive for transfers. He may also want to download & watch movies from our DVDs. Which external disk drive is compatible and powerful enough to download the software I mentioned? Amazon has great sales right now and I don’t want to make a mistake and deal with returns. Thank you!!

    1. You can pick up a DVD burner at most retailers – look for one that uses USB for the power supply. That way you don’t need two wall plugs. I got an LG with Lightscribe for $50

  27. What about anti virus I am a MS OneCare user and Windows 7 appears to be broken. Way to go Microsoft!

  28. Hi,
    Do you know if I can use the HDMI port as a 3d screen. I tryed but no way to do it with the control panel…
    Thanks

  29. What about a CD/DVD ROM? Does it have one? Do you need to buy an external? If so, do you know which kind of external CD/DVD ROM drive is compatible? Thanks…a great review btw…

    1. Bought one today – no CD/DVD player – but its a netbook. I’ll use my desktop for that stuff.

  30. Eagerly bought a 1410 through an online retailer because of the size, features and price point. During window install I discovered that it had a bad LED screen – washed out bands. Called ACER twice and they indicated repair only and the LED was not covered by MFG warranty so if I sent it in it would be 199 USD for repair. Luckily the retailer accepted it back as a DOA/defective and refunded $$ as they no longer had stock. Extemely disappointed with ACER customer care or lack therof. Because of this I would not touch an ACER with a 10 ft pole. Bought an ASUS because they stand behind their products.

  31. I have this laptop and for my basic needs it performs admirably. I love the screen size and the weight. The keyboard is excellent. And thank you to Mali for the tip with the webcam ‘protector’ I hadn’t used it yet but I just took it off :).

    In regards to 720p video, I am not able to play it either in a window or full screen. I’m using VLC with an episode of Californication. Is there a better video program out there to play 720p?

    1. While I’m not usually a fan of Windows Media Player, I found that it handled
      720p quite well on this computer. There may be other apps that work as well.

  32. The 1410 is faster than an Atom, but the additional speed doesn’t bring additional functionality to justify the higher price. I had one for all of one day.

    When HD Flash can be processed by the GPU, there is going to be a lot of buyers remorse from these more expensive than netbooks but still not great notebooks. Intel’s graphics don’t use much power, but when you consider that if you want to do a minor task like encode a video and it takes 30 minutes on a CPU, pegging it, but 5 minutes on a GPU, it becomes pretty clear that Intel totally missed the point.

    More and more tasks are getting offloaded to the GPU and the days of substandard graphics being acceptable are coming to an end. Small form factor that costs more than a netbook should be able to *do* more than a netbook. Why anyone would buy this instead of a Mini 311 with Ion or the upcoming Congo-based netbooks is baffling. It’s got nothing to do with 3D gaming, although you CAN do that with Ion or an ATI IGP, and has everything to do with the fact that anything with Intel graphics is crippled.

    You won’t be playing modern games, or even many old games on this notebook, contrary to what the review states. Even *if* the 4500mhd could pull it off hardware wise, Intel’s graphics drivers are so bad compatibility is very limited. It won’t be doing 1080p, either. I had one and that is a bald-faced lie.

    1. Warning: the only announcement that’s been made about Flash on GPU is for NVidia. Don’t buy a system with ATI graphics and assume you will get accelerated Flash.

      1. Warning: the Acer Ferrari One is coming soon, and will run circles around this junk and probably Ion-based netbooks. Intel is out of the game, in any case with 1080p with the 4500mhd. It’s not powerful enough to do it.

        1. I didn’t just make this up. The computer really did play 1080p video in my tests.

          Under what conditions did you have trouble with 1080p playback?

          1. Name a modern 3D game you played. The codecs to play 1080p work on the Intel chip provided you use their filter, which significantly reduces image quality. Since it significantly reduces the image quality, and it is speculated that it is a chip flaw, it’s not really 1080p. That’s not made up, that’s a known fact – there’s a huge thread on notebookreview.com that discusses it. Beyond3d.com and HardOCP have had discussions about it in their forums.

            I don’t consider World of Warcraft modern, and it can barely even do that.

          2. OK, but you specifically said it doesn’t play 1080p video. And it does.

            I’m just wondering why you’re being so hostile.

            The point of this laptop wasn’t to provide a full featured high performance
            machine. It has an Intel CULV processor which is designed to put it a step
            above Intel Atom powered netbooks without costing an arm and a leg.

          3. I was very disappointed with it. I bought it, and it doesn’t do what you claim it does in the review. That’s not hostility, that’s honesty. As a consumer, I am doing other people a favor by pointing out that your review is flawed. Again, the image quality for HD acceleration with the 4500mhd is bad under the codecs that it is capable of playing them with – it stutters when you don’t use them. 3D games – even old ones – are pretty much out of the question unless they are very low end and run with very low settings.

            I love the liliputing site, and I appreciate what you do here, but your review read like a marketing brochure. The Intel CULV may be a step up, but the overall machine doesn’t offer enough to justify buying this over a $279 laptop.

          4. Can you actually point to one thing I said it did in the review that it
            doesn’t? It plays 1080p video, it can handle *some* video games including
            the one I tested it with.

          5. “it can certainly handle a number of tasks that are beyond the reach of a typical netbook like playing 1080p video or some modern video games”.

            Crippled 1080p and a game from 2002 are not beyond the reach of a typical netbook, though.

            Clearly you like it, and I hope you enjoy it, however I had a different opinion of it, and I disagree that it does 1080p acceptably and that it is acceptable in games.

          6. The netbook I have can’t even run those games. I tried Neverwinter Nights (from 2001), and it choked and died before I could see frame 1. So running a game from 2002 (which was clearly mentioned if you follow the link to the gaming video) *is* an improvement.

          7. Hello Guys; Brad and Aerows,
            I would like to express my opinion on this issue that you have been discussing for sometimes now. I’m not in favor of anyone or any brand and I do respect both of your opinions and the different experiences that you had on one system.
            I just want to remind you, aerows that you really need to chill a little bit. You just spent a $400 bucks on a system and you want the capability of a $1000 computer that performs a true 1080p video resolution. I think that Brad’s point is pretty clear that this system is in the price range of the typical netbooks but with a performance of more than a “toy” system. I have been reading reviews in this website for some time now and all I could say that both YouTube videos and the reviews of Bard are pretty fair and give the user a good insight of the products before they make their decision to purchase them. Please do all of us a favor and stop attacking him and let him carry on the good work that help most of the buyers out there who appreciate Brad’s assistance as well as keeping open mind that their experience could be different from his own.

          8. Here, here!

            This was a fair and honest review. Brad clearly states that the processor isn’t fast enough to play high quality flash video and that it is far from bleeding edge.

            I can’t see how you can complain about a system that is the same price as other 11.6″ netbooks, but packs a speedier processor and GPU. Speedier is the key word, here. Nobody claimed it would compete with full-fledged laptops with dual core processors.

          9. hello. I have bought this computer and i think that is the best netbook that 400 Euros can buy.(portugal)
            I play GTR 2 (2006) residente evil 4 (200??) and other games with a good quality. Of course this not a PC to use in the newest video games.

  33. Anyone have any idea what type of memory the 1410 comes with in case I also want to order a second 2 GB of RAM?

  34. To get rid of the milikyness of the webcam picture you simply have to remove the plastic foil from the webcam. There sticks a small round piece of foil on the cam you can barely see 😉

    For more tips visit the Acer section on forum.notebookreview.com

  35. I’m getting one of these once I’ve saved up enough money. I was wishing for a higher capacity battery initially (might be around when I get mine) but as for battery life I’ll be using an uncommon Arch Linux installation tweaked for responsiveness and great battery life despite low performance. First upgrade for many as far I can see will either be more memory, larger harddrive or a ssd, or a larger battery once the upgrade comes out.

    P.S.: Does anyone know of a U.S. online retailer that will ship to Canada? I tried TigerDirect and Newegg but no go. I was hoping to get this when Black Friday rolls around (as well as an 8GB RAM kit (and SSD?) for it as well).

  36. Brad, there is something weird going on with the Acer’s and the 6 hour battery when you run Win 7. I have a D250 with a 6 cell battery when I had XP installed it ran for almost 6 1/2 hours, after loading Win 7 and all of a sudden I am only getting 4.5 hours of battery life. Is there anyway you can find out how to maybe get the full capacity of the battery without having to completely overhaul the power settings?

  37. Is the webcam 0.3M or 1.3M? Acer always seems to want to put the 0.3M in their units.

  38. I really wish, that the industry would find a happy median with the size of netbooks and just leave at that point. In my opinion they are taking away from the coolness of netbooks by constantly increasing the size. I started of with 8.9 inch and now I have moved up to 10 both Acer models and loved both of them however I don’t think I would be interested in anything larger than what I have. If so I would just by a full size laptop with all the bells and whistles for the same price as a 11 inch netbook.

    1. I agree with you- i have put off and put off buying one of these things because every week some new device comes out. I actually like the 11.6 inch screen because I think it would be easier to see than the 10 inch screen. As for buying a full size laptop… the advanage for me is that i want to be able to grab this and go to the couch, or to the basement, without too much weight. And the 11.6 don;t add too much weight. but i remember I was going to buy the asus 1000HE. And then it was going to be the 1005HA. And then the Gateway because better processor but less bettery time. And then I was going to settle for the Acer 751 because I wnated more battery life. And here I am, 6 months later, and I haven’t bought anything yet because the netbook platform isn;t stable. i really want to get the Acer 1410, but I would like a built-it TV tuner (my son is always watching Dora on the Plasma, even when the Phillies are on), and companies keep on promising to add them, like the MSI Wind 123T, but still nothing. And I refuse to buy Dell on principle. So its hard to choose. I definitely want a light netbook, but I wish they would slow down so I would feel what i bought was absolete in 2 months. And dammit, where are my netbooks w/ TV tuners!

      1. — Netbooks with TV tuners:

        Blame the DTV transition (and netbooks’ lower prices). Analog tuners were old tech, cheap and easy to manufacture by many vendors. DTV requires the newer tuner-on-chip tech that costs more to build. Throw in the Hollywood/DRM mess, and most netbook makers can’t or won’t go the extra mile.

      2. Yes DTV is more expensive equipment, but the reasons are more complex than that (even if it was inexpensive and they wanted to)

        I wish to add this; I’m familiar with the technology behind DTV. I personally do not believe DTV portable devices will ever make it big, one reason is Digital tv unlike analog was designed for transmission to non moving location,with laptops their always moving, moving a DTV antenna an inch could mean signal or no signal. It was not the case with analog, because the industry took for granted the fact, some signal went through and that was good enough. This is the reason for pushing out Wireless (CELL and WiMaxbased Data TV), as those were designed for moving targets, but of.course not free.

  39. 2 quick questions:
    You say the multi-touch gesture drivers not installed for windows 7- does that mean multi-touch will never work with Windows 7? Or will Acer just need to come out with specific drivers for it to work?
    And… MSI Wind 210. I know you haven’t reviewed it, but how do you think the AMD processor would stack up againt the Intel CULV? Just based on your knowldge.
    Thanks

    1. No, it just means that when you do a clean install of Win7, you don’t
      get multitouch support. I didn’t even try installing the Windows Vista
      drivers under Windows 7, but odds are at least some of them would
      work.

      As for the AMD processor, I haven’t tried it so I’m not going to speculate.

    2. I’d go with the MSI Wind 210. It’s slightly less expensive, and can actually do the tasks this review claims this netbook can do, but cannot. You will be playing no 3D games with this, much less modern because compatibility is horrible with Intel drivers and the 4500mhd is the same old crippled Intel graphics tech. 1080p will not happen.

      I had one of these. There is no sense in paying more for something that when GPU computing expands, and it will, will still be relying on the CPU. Try something Ion based or ATI based. I sent it right back because the things reviews like this claims it is capable of are untrue. Intel makes great CPUs and IO chipsets, but their graphics are junk with junk drivers. The 4500mhd is better, but still so bad the improvements are kind of pointless.

      1. Interesting. As soon as I saw that it had an AMD chip, I assumed bigger, thicker, crappier battery life, different target audience.

        But it’s rated at 5 hours of battery life instead of 6 (not a big difference), a whopping 0.02 inches thicker, a half inch bigger in each direction (for the 12.1″ screen), and 0.12 pounds heavier (3.2 vs 3.08).

        That’s not a lot of sacrifices to make to get real graphics. Go AMD!

        1. Ferrari One looks to be even better, too. It is a significantly better specced machine than the Wind U210, too, since it will use the HD3200. It’s likely going to destroy Ion-based machines, too. Intel is nowhere in the running against either, due to the weakness of their graphics chips. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to watch movies and fire up an occasional game. You won’t be doing either with this laptop because the CPU is just not strong enough, and the graphics chip certainly isn’t.

          1. are you just hating big time now? do you want to have a GPU on a netbook? GPU’s from ATI Nvidia and others are not optimized for low power consumption. Intel has good graphics chip for the money.. but many times the chipset are actually coming from 3rd party too..

            you may use some of your ram memory to boost your graphics.

  40. 11.6″ is the perfect size for me, especially given you can get better hardware for it.

    all i need to know is whether vendors like AMD will add OpenCL driver support to their ultra-thin platforms, because after all the market the devices as real computers rather than multimedia consumption devices.

  41. Are you sure it doesn;t support multi-touch gestures? When i checked it out on Amazon, there is a whole section under the description dedicated to showing the pinch, circle, and flick gestures.

    1. My bad. These drivers aren’t auto-installed in Windows 7, and I guess
      I didn’t spend enough time with Windows Vista to notice them.

  42. Thanks for the article. I’ve been consider this model. Honestly the battery life is a little weak. Also, if it’s like the 13.3 or 14″ models, it should have SPDIF inside of the headphone jack.

    Anyway, a couple of pedantic quibbles: you used the word “wrest” to describe a wrist rest. And you mentioned that the machine came with Windows 7 installed, when later in the article you implied that Vista was installed originally.

    1. Thanks, I’ve corrected those mistakes.

      Honestly I’m on the fence about the battery. 4 to 5 hours is better
      than you’ll get from most full sized laptops, but compared to many
      netbooks available today it’s not so hot. But it might be worth it for
      some users aching for better overall performance than you’ll get from
      an Intel Atom netbook.

    2. Thanks, I’ve corrected those mistakes.

      Honestly I’m on the fence about the battery. 4 to 5 hours is better
      than you’ll get from most full sized laptops, but compared to many
      netbooks available today it’s not so hot. But it might be worth it for
      some users aching for better overall performance than you’ll get from
      an Intel Atom netbook.

  43. I would buy one – except for that horrible keyboard. Not only do your nails slide off the super slick keys, but they look awful vulnerable to getting torn off.

  44. Went to BJ’s Warehouse tonight- they carry the 1410 for $450 w/ a $50 discount until end of the year. Going to pick one up soon

  45. i decided to not wait for new culv netbooks and bought a used fujitsu p1620 instead
    i love the small form factor and the tablet function

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