Laptop-Review.eu

The processor:

The Acer Aspire One A150 comes with Intel’s newest Atom N270 processor. It’s a low watt processor, but does it also provide loads of horse power? We take a closer look at how it performs in the machine below. We can see that the internal L2 Cache is on 51KB, and that the processor runs with 533MHz FSB at 1.6GHz. Slightly less cache, but otherwise the same as the Dothan processor in my TravelMate 4651LMi work notebook.

SuperPi:

Super Pi calculates the number PI with 1 million decimals. The result is a time in seconds, meaning that the lower the number, the better. The PI can be used for direct comparison with other laptops that have run the same test.

Both netbooks generally perform far worse than what we have seen during the past year here on Laptop-review. At the same time, it’s surprising that the 900MHz slower Celeron in the 1000HD matches the Atom processor in the Aspire One. The score can be put into context by comparing it with that of a T9600 based laptop that scores about 16, and yes, the lower the better!!! The Acer Aspire One seemed faster than the Eee 1000HD in real time performance though. Performance of the Eee 1000 and Eee 1000H will presumably match that of the Aspire One.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic:

SiSoft Sandras Whetstone and Drystone benchmark tests the processor’s ability to do pure number crunching, which occurs during gaming or different forms of picture editing. The measure is in Mflops (Millions Floating Point Operations Per Second) – the higher, the better.

Looking at the results, the difference is almost 30% in favour of Atom and the Acer Aspire One. I was actually impressed by the performance of Intel’s new Atom processor; it has loads of processing power. The Aspire One might also be winning due to a newer and better chipset.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia:

The multimedia test in SiSoft Sandra is calculated on a 2D figure. The output (it/s) is Mandelbrot iterations per second, i.e. the bigger the better.

As could be expected, the results favour the Atom processor. You get lots of performance here, and I would actually compare the processor with my old 1.6GHz Dothan in my work notebook.

Intel transferred their HyperThreading technology to the Atom N270, which is actually really noticeable when you compare the Atom to the Celeron processor in the Eee 1000HD. When you’re faced with the choice of which netbook to get, an Atom processor based netbook comes recommended. Acer has chosen a winner for their Aspire One...will we get a netbook with a dual core version of the Atom?

RAM SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwith:

The A150 comes with 1GB DDR2 RAM that runs 667MHz with the following timings: 4,4,4,12,16.

The 512MB are onboard, so I looked at the degree to which you have to dismantle the Aspire One to upgrade to 1GB RAM. Let’s just say it’s not recommended, especially since the laptop comes with 1GB and would only be able to take on 512MB additional RAM.

Traditionally, 2GB are advisable on most contemporary Windows 32Bit based platforms, and one might hope that the Aspire One will get an updated version. On the other hand, the netbook ran smoothly and could even play HD films. Do note that dual channel from the newer Intel chipsets are inaccessible on the Atom platform – it would only increase performance. Sadly, Intel does not seem willing to let Atom and the Centrino 2 platform work together...

Sisoft Sandras Memory Bandwidth benchmark is used to measure the speed of the RAM – the higher the value, the better.

The result is that Acer’s Aspire One A150 has a lead on Asus’ Eee 1000HD. Note, however, that corrections for the newer chipset on the A150 and the additional 1GB RAM on the Eee have not been made. Still, it would seem that the extra 1GB of RAM aren’t utilized optimally.

Hard drive performance - SiSoft Sandra Hard Drive Read:

Sisoft Sandras hard drive test module is used to measure the performance of the hard drive. Sisoft Sandra runs a number of tests on the surface of the hard drive and calculates the average reading speed.

The biggest surprise here was that the hard drive in the Eee 1000 HD – just a standard 2.5” 5400rpm hard drive from Seagates Momentus 5400.3 series – beat all previous records in 2.5” tests I’ve run!!! This negligible 80GB can run fast it seems, almost 50% faster than the hard drive in the Aspire One, which is otherwise a decent drive. Whether the hard drive in the Eee 1000H will perform just as well I cannot say.

The results from HDTach confirm the picture painted by SiSoft Sandra: the hard drive in the Aspire One A150 performs quite well for a 5400rpm Sata 2.5” drive. Like RAM, the hard drive in a laptop is one of the few remaining bottlenecks that keep laptops from reaching the same level of performance as desktops.