Well Santa very kindly got me a new laptop for christmas, I will record my user experience here.

Firstly let me clarify which version of this machine I have and it's spec, Acer have not marketed this product and it's cousins very well.

Spec:

• Screen 13.3" 16:9 - Max Res: 1366 x 768
• Weight 1.6 Kg
• No Optical Drive
• Battery 5600 mha - claimed life 8 hrs
• CPU dual core ULV 1.3 Ghz U4100
• RAM 4GB
• OS Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
  
• HD 250GB
• Built in Webcam
  
• PSU 65w
  

Cost ~£500 can be found cheaper on a few sites.

First Impressions

It is light and feels well put together. The keyboard is very different from my old dell x300, it has mac style flat keys which I am starting to prefer. I will be using it mainly for development in visual studio and Sql server 2008. Installing these applications took some time but not too long.

I removed most of the software that came bundled with the machine I find this a nuisance but I'm sure it allows manufacturers to reduce prices. Windows 7 is a breath of fresh air but as I have never used vista there is a steeper learning curve. The first thing I did was setup a quick launch toolbar. It is starting to become clear the quick launch bar is redundant now you can pin programs to the task bar.

Second Impressions

I have been using this laptop for just over a month now so have some feedback. Generally I am enjoying one annoyance is the single button pivoted mouse buttons. The main problem is the action of the button require too much pressure and you cannot feel if you are ove the left or right click. Other than this one annoyance it has been a very positive first month, I think most of this is down to moving from XP => Win7. Battery life is impressive on light duties 8 hours is achievable with constant use 5 hours no problem.

How to create a factory default disc

Acer do not supply a recovery disc, instead they supply software to allow you to create your own discs. If you have an external DVD burner and three blank DVD's you'll have no problem. If not you can download the demo version of Virtual CD v10 (google it) this will allow you to create a virtual DVD burner and create three ISO files that should be kept somewhere safe or burned to DVD using another PC. Should you need to recover your machine you will probably have to go and purchase an external DVD drive to perform the recovery process.

Cisco VPN on Windows 7 64bit

This is probably an edge case but I could not get my hands on a version of a Cisco VPN client that would run under my OS. Our IT guy pointed me to the Shrew Soft Vpn (google it) Client. If you have .pcf files for your VPN connections these can be imported. I have only just tested it and I have just had a BSOD so watch this space to see how I get on. One negative point is that you have to type in your username + pwd each time you connect. In the Cisco client it remembered your username.