Many years ago, I learned that our own limits were like walls surrounding us. They gave us a sense of security, dimension and perspective; they allowed us to get to know everything about the world inside because at the same time they protected us from the world outside. I also learned that people are afraid of breaking down those walls and overcoming their limits, as they’re frightened of losing the sanctuary that limits offer. So if happiness awaits those who overcome their limits, we’re actually taught to fear happiness.

Balls I say. I don’t know about you but I’m all for happiness…

The story goes that we’re supposed to be averse to change; that stability and progressive evolution give us certainty and advancement. Change upsets the delicate equilibrium of predictability and scares the bejesus out of us.

Businesses don’t like change as it disrupts their carefully-studied plans for world domination. Customers don’t like change as they fear they’re financing an risky experiment. After all, who wants to be left with a lemon when everybody’s eating bananas? Emm, right…

So basically, the story says that if you change something it’s not as good as it was.

The Acer D250 Netbook I’ve been playing with for the past few days is testament to change. Make no mistake, the Acer D250 shows an Android-shaped finger to those who want us to believe that there is only one way things get done.

Acer tried it before when they fitted the first versions of the Aspire One with a modified Linux Operating System. That didn’t work because despite what the geeks may think, Linux ain’t easy and let’s face it, Acer didn’t really believe in it enough to go through with it.

The Acer D250 though, is Acer’s second shot at showing the world that there is another path and this time I think it could be in with a chance of reaching critical mass, if Acer pushes it harder and supports it better than the last time.

The key here is the fact that it’s a dual boot machine. You can run either Windows7 or Android depending on what you have to do. All you have to do is set up your Google Gmail account and tell the D250 how you want it to start. End of story…? Not quite.

Most of the complaints I’ve seen on this site with netbooks is that people want to set them up like their laptops. Fail!

IT 101: A laptop is a miniaturized desktop PC. A netbook is not a miniaturized laptop. It’s a portable web interface that can be made to work like a mini notebook.

Of course many people will feel uncomfortable with that definition as they are the first to refuse change by replicating their laptops on their netbooks but trust me, it’s completely unnecessary. I took my 1st generation Linux-based Aspire One to London during last year’s global kick off. I blogged live, uploaded photos to my Flickr account, checked my mail and also spoke to my family during the evening via Skype. And it worked flawlessly. At no point that entire conference did I feel I was missing something as everything I had to do I could do online.



Here comes the change: If a netbook is designed primarily to work well on the web, just how necessary is it to have an all singing and dancing operating system or office suite installed on it?

Back to the Acer D250. It has Android which, apart from an offline office suite does everything my 1st gen did but even quicker and on a bigger screen. Plus if I’m online, I can always fire up Google docs and work there.

Feeling uneasy with the new OS? Then click on the top left of the screen and in a few seconds you’ll be whisked away to the wonderful world of Windows7. Starter. Ouch!

Windows Starter lets you know you’re on the bottom wrung of the ladder as it tries to upsell you on every occasion and, let’s face it, it’s pretty bland. So you click on Windows Anytime Upgrade and you find that the top-of-the line Windows 7 Ultimate package, which should run smoothly on this baby, costs €205.

While you’re browsing that, McAfee asks you for €49.99 to activate your antivirus for one year and you suddenly wonder how you’re going to load Office as there is no DVD drive. No problem there’s a button for that too and as you probably want to use this for work too, you need Office Small Business as it has PowerPoint and you discover that this version costs €546,25 (€606,05 for Professional).

So when I try to replicate my laptop on the €299 Acer D250 Netbook thinking I’ve made the discovery of the century, I end up with something that costs over €1,000 which gives me no real advantage over the laptop I’m probably trying to replicate in the first place, or perhaps more relevantly the 11.6″ Acer Aspire AS1410 notebook that forces me to so the whole Windows thing and still offers 6 Hour Battery Life…

Put that against nothing for Android and nothing for Google Docs and the appeal of the Acer D250 becomes obvious.

OK, I’m the first to accept that Android isn’t as plug and play as I’d like and I hate the way the Android marketplace is basically for smartphones but I’m sure the Aspire D250 will be remembered. At least it wasn’t afraid of change…


If you’re interested in seeing how Acer gets Android to work on the Acer D250 or you lost your instruction manual somewhere, you can download the Instant-on for Android User Guide (English) in PDF format from here