4. Acer Aspire One D255 - £247
With manufacturers looking to set their products apart from the rest of the netbook crowd, Acer's Aspire One D255 runs the smartphone-centric Android (2.1) operating system (OS), as well as Windows 7.
Windows 7 works just as you would imagine, offering all the compatibility you could want, as well as a familiar system to work with. Android has been included to provide a quick way of getting on the web, reading emails and viewing your photos and movies.
An Intel Atom processor provides power enough for basic use. It is a dual-core version, so should provide more power, but we didn't notice an improvement over older Atom processors. The integrated graphics card provides basic multimedia performance, and the netbook is more about consuming content, such as movies, than creating it.
We were extremely impressed by the Acer's keyboard. It is large, firm and provides a very crisp typing action – one of the best we've experienced on a machine of this size, making it ideally suited for those who need to write a lot on the move.
Portability is excellent and a 389-minute battery life and 1.2kg weight make it ideal for the regular traveller.
