Durban - If you’ve used notebook PCs as long as I have you’ll remember they were heavy, ungainly and expensive.
Then along came the netbook, a featherweight gadget closer in size to today’s tablets than traditional laptops. Stripped of all but the basics, netbooks were not for power users – they were super-portable, plasticky and cheap.
My first netbook, an Asus EEPC bought almost eight years ago, had just 2GB of onboard flash storage. It cost the princely sum of R3 500 but soon fell to R2 500.
But if you wanted a full-sized screen and keyboard and needed to do any real work, you were stuck with the clunky heavyweights for another year or two until the advent of the ultrabook.
Apple set the trend with its slim and sexy Macbook Air. Although the first Air made its debut in 2008, it wasn’t until 2010 that ultrabooks entered the mainstream. That’s when Apple released a Macbook Air with a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a hard disc drive (HDD) and several competing Windows models became available, led by Samsung.
While ultrabooks were almost as lightweight as netbooks, they offered nearly all the features of their bulky predecessors, but crammed into a sleek, premium-look package with a price tag to match – R15 000 and up.
But what if, like me, you wanted something in between, both in terms of price and bells and whistles? What if you wanted ultrabook features like a generous-sized keyboard but were happy to do without some of the costlier trappings like the latest processor, metallic finishes and a super-high-definition display?
Even today, there isn’t a lot available in this niche. So I’m always excited when I come across one of these “netrabooks” – no, that isn’t a word. I made it up, so if that abomination ever takes off you can blame me.
Enter the Acer Aspire R11, which fits this bill more perfectly than any laptop I’ve encountered recently. Encased unashamedly in plastic, you know from the outset that Acer is aiming for practicality, not looks. Pick it up, though, and it feels fairly lightweight and reassuringly well put together.
There’s no give or creaking in the plastic – I pressed quite hard to make sure – and it doesn’t feel cheap or toy-like.
Another pleasant surprise was the keyboard, which is gratifyingly generously proportioned for the R11’s 12-inch chassis – if you’re wondering about the 11 in the name, it refers to the 11-inch, touch-enabled display.
The keys are nicely spaced – reminiscent of the Macbook Air – and the trackpad is silky smooth and responsive. It would have been nice if the keys were backlit, but you can’t have everything.
Battery life was good, with the R11 managing between five and eight hours between charges.
And this Aspire’s got an ace up its sleeve, a clever screen hinge that lets you bend it past the point of other notebooks – with the exceptions of Lenovo’s appropriately-named Yoga.
This means you can stand it up A-frame fashion in a meeting or even bend the screen back a full 360º to turn it into a tablet – albeit a rather bulky, ungainly one.
The innards are more conventional. The model I tested had a 500GB HDD and 4GB RAM, although there’s also a pricier model boasting an impressive 1TB HDD with 8GB of RAM.
Because the R11 uses an HDD rather than an SSD, it’s not super quick at booting or coming out of standby mode, but I never found myself getting overly impatient, although those spoiled by exposure to the near-instant start-up times of high-end tablets may be less forgiving.
The 1.6GHz processor is nothing to write home about, but I found this Acer snappy and responsive for everyday tasks like e-mails, word processing and web browsing, although there was some lag when it came to playing anything but the most basic of video games – something I fully expected given the R11’s sub-R8 000 price tag.
Equally middle-of-the-road is its 1366 x 768-pixel, not-quite-full-HD screen. It’s perfectly clear enough for day-to-day use, but it wouldn’t be my first choice for viewing high-end video content.
On the plus side, the display is touch-enabled, something I really like in a laptop.
Although I didn’t use the R11 in tablet mode that often, I regularly found myself using a finger to swipe away notifications or scroll through a long web page or document while in standard mode.
The review model came loaded with Windows 8.1 – not my favourite operating system – but I was almost immediately given the option to upgrade to the far better Windows 10, an offer I wasted no time accepting.
If I seem to have dwelled on the Aspire R11’s negative points, it’s only to be sure you don’t approach it with unrealistic expectations. For the price, it matched all my expectations and exceeded several of them – the keyboard was particularly impressive.
If you’re looking for a reasonably-priced netbook/ultrabook hybrid that’s lightweight, but robust enough to stand the rigours of a daily commute, as well as powerful enough for all the basic tasks, the Acer Aspire R11 is worth a look.
I was sorry to see it go.
@alanqcooper
Sunday Tribune
