My venerable and beloved Acer Aspire netbook (my Sony 32XBR100 TV is likewise venerable and beloved) with Windows XP is now four years old. With Acer announcing that it would no longer make netbooks, and with a tablet not being right for what I need, and with Windows XP fading into the sunset over the next year, and Windows 8 having such an awful user interface, I went looking for a new netbook with these specs:
- Windows 7 64-bit
- 4 GB memory
- 11.6″ screen
- $300 or less
The particular CPU and the size of the drive didn’t matter to me so much. The problem was finding Windows 7. There were 64-bit Acer netbooks with 4 gig and a 11.6″ screen for under $300, but they had Windows 8. Just as I have never had Vista on a Windows system at home, I shall never have a Windows 8 system at home.
So I looked and I looked, and I waited and waited, and found nothing. I feared the cupboard was bare, and I was beginning to regret my bottom-feeding ways, when a curious pre-order listing appeared on Amazon for this item:
It was a curious pre-order offer because it was for a discontinued model. At the moment the listing says “Only 18 left in stock.” Anyway, I ordered one and I’m using it now. It was manufactured back in June, so it took a couple of hours to get caught up on all of the Windows updates. There are some quirks that I’ll have to get used to, but the overall performance is so much better than the old 9″ Acer Aspire that I’d say it’s more like a small laptop without an optical drive. This is, I assume, the last of the Windows 7 netbooks, and I’m glad I was able to snag one.