Acer Aspire One D255E

What's the opposite of an "impulse purchase"? Whatever the phrase is, that's what the buying process for this device was for me. Took me months! Earlier in the year there was an article in PC Pro comparing many Netbooks and this one won. That was just the start.

I then set about looking for alternatives at a better price, but - cutting to the chase - nothing seemed as good. I stood for ages in PC World and Currys playing with netbooks various, and was somewhat underwhelmed. If you get the chance, walk up to a netbook and try running four or five applications at once. Chances are it will fall flat on its face.

Most of them are single core processors, and nearly all have but 1gig of memory. A few years ago their specification would have been thought fabulous, but now they struggle to cope with just the operating system, let alone running a program. (There's an article elsewhere in the blog extolling the virtues of MS-DOS for those who can remember it.)

So, the D255E has a dual core processor. I very nearly bought a single core example once, before the nuances of Acer's name scheme became apparent to me, a mistake I suspect many could have made. It has  1gig of memory and a 250gig hard disk. It has 3 USB ports, N class wifi and a 10.1 inch display. It nominally costs 250 quid, but I decided that 200 was my top limit. Much hard work went into tracking down such a thing, weeks passed but eventually I fluked it - Okobe had red ones for 200 pounds. I'm inclined to think they made a mistake on their web site, because if anything red ones are more than the usual black.

There's no denying, it is a bit slow. It's a 1.5 ghz processor, and the dual core does allow it to multi-task quite happily, but it's no greyhound, Patience is required. Once things are running, they run well, but start up times seem slow.

Having removed all the crapware from the machine, installed Chrome and Firefox and banished IE whence it came, surfing is a totally pleasant experience. And as that's pretty much all I wanted it for, that's fine. But having said that, I have no complaints about how it runs Office, or indeed any of the other apps I've subsequently installed. I can't see it doing video editing, but Picassa works fine for example, as does Google Earth.

The display is very bright and clear as a bell, and it's glossy finish has not caused me problems at all. And once the battery was trained it is genuinely giving me hours of use on a charge. The claim is 8 hours plus, but that must be for doing not-a-lot, I'm getting over 6 hours of normal use, whatever that is...

The wifi range is good, the keyboard is nice to use, the touchpad is responsive, it's light to carry, and looks cute as a button. It gets a little warm on the lap, but nothing to mention, and the fan is quiet. It's great for watching the BBC iPlayer in bed. Speakers aren't that great, well they sound okay but there's little volume, but that's easily fixed with headphones.

If I was to find fault... there's just 1gig of ram, but to install more you have to get your screwdriver out and remove the base... I'm not sure my nerves would take this. Surely a little hatch isn't too much to ask? Or that it should come with 2gig? Because just running a browser the ram usage goes into the red sometimes.

The machine is configured to boot into Android. This is easily bypassed, but I've left it doing this, as the start up time is phenomenal. It feels like just a few seconds from pressing "on" to being able to surf. Catch is, the version of Firefox used in the Android partition is well old, and I can't fathom how (or indeed if) you can update it. And oddly it seems to run very slowly, use it for gmail for example, and it keeps "sticking" as you type your message. There's something not quite right with it all. And there's a small app store to access, but so far I've failed to download anything from it, it just hangs when I try.

But ignoring these minor gripes, I cannot but heartily recommend the D255. I've been using it for a few weeks now and it's performed faultlessly. I attended a long meeting recently, other participants had laptops that they kept having to 'sleep' all the time - me, I just left the Acer on - that battery rocks! As I said before, beware the identical looking single core version, which can be the same price too, confusingly. You may not be as a lucky as me to find one for 200 quid, 240 seems generally to be going rate, but as the opposition catches up with dual cores I expect its price will drop.

Update 2017

Yes, after many years, the Acer is still going, admittedly with only infrequent use these days. It has soldiered on well, and still looks quite new. The battery still gives a reasonable life, and everything still works fine. Software wise, it did start to go slower and slower, until it really got unusable, at which point a complete re-install of Windows sorted it out. Along the way I did try running it using Linux, but this didn't really give me the tools I needed, but it did work okay-ish (see here). I did lose the Android alternative system that the machine came with, no great loss. And then came Windows 10. I took the chance of the free upgrade, which I was surprised I got given that the original system was 7 Starter. BUT, after the upgrade things were not great, it had become very slow, despite the hype that 10 did not need more power than 7.
So... I gritted my teeth and did what I should have done from the very start, upgrade the memory. It came with just 1gig. I had read what was required to upgrade, and when the notebook was new I didn't fancy taking it apart to get the new RAM in, but of course now I wasn't so bothered. And it turned out to be a ten minute job, no problem at all. The worrying bit is prizing the keyboard off and then undoing several key screws, but there's a YouTube video that shows you how to do it. A doddle, and the memory was very cheap. A very worthwhile upgrade and means the machine will run Windows 10 happily. In fact I'm using it this very minute to write this.
So, during it's life Notebooks were in and then out of fashion, but I notice that recently there's been a resurgence in interest in these smaller laptops, this time around as a sort of tablet/laptop hybrid. They are very useful to have around, the number of time I've needed the quick use of a portable device I don't really care about, it's perfect. I now use it mostly to plug in to my car diagnostics, it happily sits on the engine telling me where the latest problem is!

Nokia C3-00

Just a brief review of my Nokia C3 mobile phone. Bit daft really, because I suppose I really need to compare this device to an equivalent Blackberry. Trouble is, I've never had a Blackberry, closest I've got is mucking about with one in Tesco.

However. It may be that my opinion of this phone is somewhat biased because I got it so cheaply. I bought it using Tesco tokens during one of their half price promotions, and ended up paying about 35 quid for it. I think it goes for about 90 quid in 'real life'. £35 - bargain, not sure how I'd feel about the full price...

Anyway, it's been excellent. Its keyboard does not have the quality feel of the Blackberry, nor is its screen so bright and inviting. But as a day-to-day phone it does everything well enough for me.

It copes with my various Gmail accounts very well, though it did take me a while to get to grips with how it works, insert usual moan here about poor documentation. (Aside... many years ago I was involved in rolling out Microsoft Office to a company nearby. Each CD of Office came with a pile - no really, a pile - of books about the various applications. I remember lugging these things about, and in the end there was almost a room full of books. I guess that wasn't very green, but at least you knew where to go to find out how the bloomin' programs worked. Now... well you might get a CD, but probably not. I recently bought a netbook, - it had critical info about how to maximise battery life on its hard disk. Trouble was, it turned out, you had to break one of the rules to get to see that instruction, i.e. switch it on in the first place! Ahem.)

Yes, so, email fine, browsing is okay too, it comes with Opera but runs the Nokia browser well too as you would expect. It handles Facebook and Twitter well, if you like that sort of thing. The screen is clear and bright, but annoyingly goes off too quickly when you're using it, and I can't find a setting to slow it down. However (not unrelated I suspect) battery life is good, I charge once a week on average. It picks up my wifi with ease, though it is a bit slow - but to be fair I personally cannot compare it with any other phone in this respect.

The biggest disappointment is the camera... it's a 2 mega-pixel job, which I assumed would be the same as the 2 mega-pixel camera I had in my old phone, a Nokia 2700. But no, it is much worse - not what I expected for a more expensive phone. It's okay in bright light and not too close to the subject, but anything else, awful.

The MP3 player is perfectly good, and easy to use. I confess I haven't really used the video function, but it works okay, I guess you can't expect too much at this level. There are a few okay games (currently addicted to Block'd) and you can download more free from the OVI app store, like Chess and Reversi.

I've had it 6 months and it's crashed maybe 5 times, recovering with a reboot no trouble. It's not put a foot wrong really, I have no major complaints. Well... just one, you have to hold the phone in just the right place next to your ear or the sound is distant, I've not really noticed this with other phones, the positioning of the speaker and ear seem to critical.

I would recommend it, 7/10, you could buy it here

Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back

Straight away can I declare myself as a huge fan of Peter Gabriel, stretching back to his Genesis days and through his solo career. The man is a genius. Now, I'll try not to be too gushing about this album!

It's taken me a year or so to get around to buying this CD. I guess I was a little disappointed when it came out to discover it was in effect a 'covers' album. I had a quick listen to it on Spotify and it sounded dull, so I didn't exactly rush out to the shops to buy it. Duh. For some reason I thought about it the other day, and it turned to be cheap as chips to buy, so I ordered it. It arrived. I played it. Dull. Played it again. Hmmm. Played it again... oh yes... Played it again (etc) - now I LOVE it, can't stop playing it, am humming it constantly - the missus is sick of it!

Just to briefly explain the concept, Peter has persuaded a diverse selection of artists to allow him to record their material in his own inimitable fashion, and they are going to reciprocate by recording one of his songs in the future, hence the title. And the other thing - no guitars or drums. So, this album is dominated by orchestral instruments and arrangements. It sounds fantastic - it is 'lush' - the proper use of the word.

There are songs by David Bowie, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Elbow, Lou Reed, Randy Newman, Radiohead, Arcade Fire, and, new to me, The Magnetic Fields, Regina Spektor and Bon Iver. They're all interpreted brilliantly, and (because I'm biased!) are all better than the original versions. His version of Elbow's Mirrorball is absolutely fantastic, I could talk about each track... but I did say I wouldn't gush...

Suffice to say that this album is simply wonderful - it's not a driving record, you've got to sit and listen to get it, but if the mood is right this is about as good as it gets. Do yourself a favour and give it a listen... no - don't be an idiot like me, give it several listens... then you'll thank me.

Very highly recommended, 10/10, you could buy it here.

Empire of the Clouds : Book Review

Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World by James Hamilton-Paterson

This book was a joy for me to read from start to finish. It was a totally impulse purchase, and I would urge you not to be put off by the cover, which makes it look a bit like a Mills and Boon 60s novel... it is far from being that.

It's a non-fiction account of this country's aircraft industry since the second world war, which I know doesn't sound very interesting... but it really is.

Mostly it's interesting because the development of supersonic jet aircraft is fascinating, but also it's interesting to see just what a complete horlicks politicians made of our aircraft industry.

I must admit that I am very interested in aviation, mainly but not entirely military, so an insight into the development of some of my favourite planes was always going to be a winner with me, but actually the book is more about exposing the appalling lack of forethought and plain common sense on the part of our political and commercial leaders over the past half century.

If like me you have little regard for politicians, then I guarantee enjoyment from this book, as it confirms one's worst fears about this strange breed. They clearly have no idea what they're doing.

To summarise, at the end of WW2 this country had a fabulous and diverse aircraft industry, responsible in no small part for winning us the war, and looking ahead to a bright future of export potential and a warm fuzzy feeling of national security.

Today we have... not much to speak of. And the reason for that cannot in any way be laid at the door of the genius designers, the remarkable craftsmen or the brave test pilots involved. No. Politicians screwed it up. Looking back from this position of hindsight, it's easy to see the mistakes they made. Travel forward in time 50 years and look back at recent decision made about the Nimrod, the Eurofighter, the Harrier etc, I very much doubt today's shower will fare any better.

A book then, full of tales of individual bravery and foolishness, of fantastic and flawed designs, of genius and utter incompetence. Highly recommended.

You can buy the book from Amazon, click HERE

Chevrolet Spark LT - Fun or just Funny?

I recently had to take the Astra in to the local Vauxhall dealer for a service. They gave me a Corsa 1.2 courtesy car, which looked quite sporty but, it turned out, was one of the most sluggish cars I've ever driven. I almost turned around to return it as faulty, but in fact I was subsequently told it was just a dog slow car for youngsters to look good in without vast insurance costs. How shallow, but fair enough I suppose. Anyway.

The service turned into a longer stay for repairs, and they swapped my Corsa for a similar car by the garage's other dealership, Chevrolet. Now, I'd never paid much attention to Chevys before, except for Camaros. This wasn't a Camaro, sadly, it was called a Spark LT.

My 12 year old son thought it looked great, but I confess I referred to it during my tenure as the 'clown car'.

I must confess to be surprised to discover that the LT is top of the line and the list price of this car is £10.5k. Hmmmm.

Well, I suppose it is quite well equipped. Alloys, fog lights, air-con, adjustable seat belts, sports bumpers (?!) and a lot of stereo.

So, was it any good? It was okay. But the looks. I couldn't quite work out who would buy this car. Certainly not an old gadget like myself, it would be embarrassing. Young people then... but I'm not sure, it's not as appealing as some similarly wacky looking Citroens somehow. There's too much styling... what are those roof rails for? Are the black stripes and flashes helping, really, I mean they're just stickers. The alloys aren't alloy-ee enough.


The interior (again) appealed to my son, and I guess it was quite different. There's a lot of bare metal, but not in the name of austerity so much as style, and in places it worked. Though, quite often reflection from the metal of passing trees would momentarily distract. But it was comfy and modern. The instruments were odd, however, a strange combination of digital and analogue, hard to fathom what you were looking at half the time.


It grew on me after a couple of days I must admit. It wasn't fast but it was perky, it did the job quite well, the cabin was okay to be in, and of course from there you can't see the outside, possibly a blessing. Let's put it like this, it's not a boring car. Which is a good thing.

There's more info on the Spark here.