Acer has proved with past Aspire notebooks, not to mention its impressive
Chromebooks, that budget can be beautiful when it comes to laptops.
And the Acer Aspire E1 does have plenty going for it in addition to its flaws.
The E1 bears comparing to some of its contemporaries, but it's more
expensive than the Toshiba Satellite S50D and lacks the draw of the
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14's rotating hinge.
So, the question is: can a friendly price, solid performance and
adequate features make up for a couple of glaring flaws that
can make even simple tasks – like browsing the internet or
reading a document.
It's necessary to mention this now, because it just might be a deal
breaker, no matter what else the E1 has to offer. The trackpad is
responsive enough when it comes to the most simple task: moving
the cursor around. But when it comes to doing anything else,
the surface falls well short, despite its pleasant texture.
Using two fingers to scroll is terribly finicky, with the pad either
not recognizing what you're trying to do or actually somehow
registering a lengthy scroll in the wrong direction. It's bad enough
that you may find yourself simply using the arrow keys to scroll,
like it's 1999, or even manually grabbing the scroll bar with
the mouse pointer – like some kind of barbarian.
Even worse, depending on what you're used to, the Aspire
E1's mouse button is downright archaic. The single bar along
the trackpad is actually divided into two buttons though you
can't tell from looking at it, and astonishingly there's about
an inch in the middle that doesn't click at all.
Chromebooks, that budget can be beautiful when it comes to laptops.
And the Acer Aspire E1 does have plenty going for it in addition to its flaws.
The E1 bears comparing to some of its contemporaries, but it's more
expensive than the Toshiba Satellite S50D and lacks the draw of the
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14's rotating hinge.
So, the question is: can a friendly price, solid performance and
adequate features make up for a couple of glaring flaws that
can make even simple tasks – like browsing the internet or
reading a document.
It's necessary to mention this now, because it just might be a deal
breaker, no matter what else the E1 has to offer. The trackpad is
responsive enough when it comes to the most simple task: moving
the cursor around. But when it comes to doing anything else,
the surface falls well short, despite its pleasant texture.
Using two fingers to scroll is terribly finicky, with the pad either
not recognizing what you're trying to do or actually somehow
registering a lengthy scroll in the wrong direction. It's bad enough
that you may find yourself simply using the arrow keys to scroll,
like it's 1999, or even manually grabbing the scroll bar with
the mouse pointer – like some kind of barbarian.
Even worse, depending on what you're used to, the Aspire
E1's mouse button is downright archaic. The single bar along
the trackpad is actually divided into two buttons though you
can't tell from looking at it, and astonishingly there's about
an inch in the middle that doesn't click at all.