Thanks to my recent experience with the MacBook Air I was sorta becoming a fan of these small, netbook sized laptops. Having been used to travelling with my 15 inch Dell Studio, these miniature laptops felt much easier to carry around and comfortable to work on – especially on the move.
While I know that the MacBook Air is slightly larger than your average Netbook, the weight and the dimensions are almost on par – hence the comparison. Anyway, that brings me to the review today where we would be taking a look at the Acer e-Machines eM350.
eMachines happens to be Acer’s brand name for its low-end, high volume netbooks and entry level segment. Acer acquired eMachines as a part of the deal that saw the Taiwanese company take over Gateway – the company that owned the brand eMachines. Let’s take a closer look at the eM350 now.
Look and Feel
The eM350 looks like your typical netbook complete with the black panels, plasticky build and of course, its diminutive dimensions. The overall build quality seemed decent with little panel gaps. Like we said, the only thing you might not like is the plasticky build which frankly, is not bad at all – but some might not like it.
The M350 tips the scales at just 1.25 kgs and feels very comfortable in your hands. I have managed to use it for extended hours of commuting and it was great to work on! The keyboard is neatly spaced out. The touchpad on the other hand feels too small. The buttons on the touchpad are slightly hard to press and we think it could have been much better.
Specs
This netbook gets a 10.1 inch display with a resolution of 1024*600 which with Windows 7 Starter Edition looks good on the display. It gets 1GB of RAM and the performance with even 1GB seemed quite OK. Storage is handled by a sufficiently large 250GB hard disk which for a netbook is quite decent. Number crunching is handled by the Intel Atom N450 single core CPU running at 1.67 Ghz.The N450 also integrates the GMA 3150 graphics controller on a single die.
On the software front, the netbook comes preloaded with Windows 7 starter edition – a stripped down, but decently functional version of Windows 7 for low cost, low power notebooks. It also has a front webcam situated above the display. Connectivity options include three USB ports – two on the left and one on the right, a LAN port, a VGA connector and two audio input/output jacks.
Performance
Make no mistake about it. The eM350 is no trailblazing, uber fast, benchmarks shattering device. It is not expected to be one. It however is decent at what it is expected of being capable of. For example, it can easily handle your large excel worksheet whilst you are also surfing a bunch of websites.
It is also adept at handling HD videos and movies (720p) without much issues. The performance is decent for these normal usage patterns. The eM350 is powered by a 3 cell battery that is good for about 4 to5 hours of norml usage which we think is pretty decent. We traied running the PC Mark benchmarking suit on the device – however the tests failed repeatedly. We are still investigating why that was so.
Conclusion
The Acer eM350 retails for Rs 14625 (or less depending on our source) in India. The netbooks market in India is a crowded one here with the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS vying for your attention. In such a market, the eMachines eM350 doesn’t really stand out from the competition in terms of many things like performance and design.
Dell and HP for example is known for its good looking range of netbooks which might appeal to users who want something that they can show off. The eM350 on the other hand is the virtual ugly duckling here. But it’s functional as any of the others in its range are. Go for this one if you prefer a no nonsense netbook without much priority on the looks factor.
