Acer Aspire One Happy 2nd gen- gorgeous and cheap netbook

The Acer Aspire One Happy line is basically a visual re-branding of the Aspire One 10 inch netbook line, and it’s a try from the company to offer the same computer in a different package. It’s a move usually tried around the summer holidays, at the same time with blockbuster movies and other colorful distractions that aim at your pocket.

Acer is not the only company giving this a try, as Asus comes with colorful and patterned lids for their netbooks and notebooks, while some tablet manufacturers cover their slates in jewelry and ask you to pay a little fortune for them.

But let’s get back to the new “Happy” line, the 2nd generation and see what’s it all about. First off, the colors.  There are 4 options to choose from, namely yellow lemon, orange papaya, blue curacao and pink grapefruit. The lid is covered in one of the colors and benefits from the water drop design that we’ve seen on Acer netbooks before. The color treatment doesn’t flow on other parts of the netbook (except the touch pad) as the palm rest, keyboard and edges are white.

The design and colors are much more attractive than what we see on other entry level netbooks

The material used is of course plastic and the colors are a little pale, just in tone with a relaxing summer, spent at the beach, browsing the web 😛 . Acer also offers wireless mouse in the same color options if you want to have an entire themed PC setup (and sleeves and other accessories are probably on the way). The finish seems to be as glossy as they come, so you’d better keep a cloth nearby.

Moving on, the screen of the Aspire One Happy is a standard 1024 x 600, 10 inch LED display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. That’s a good set up if you want to watch some HD videos, but rest assured that this will only be possible on some configurations. Acer lets you choose from a bunch of options when it comes to processors, the base model boosting a single core, Intel Atom N455 chip. That’s the option you should choose if you’re planning to only check some emails and browse the web, as anything more complex might choke the little hippie to death.

Moving up the ladder, you can go for the N475, which is a slightly faster single core processor (1.85 GHZ in comparison with 1.66 GHZ), as well as having better power management. The top choice is a dual core, N570 processor, which should keep you safe and smooth when working, especially if you’re going to stick with the stock OS, which is Windows 7 Starter (and you get Android as well as a secondary boot option, but I don’t know how useful that can be, considering that the screen is not touch sensitive).

All versions come with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM, which is anyway the maximum amount you can count on when running on Windows 7 Starter. If you’ll want to enjoy the maximum of 2 GB, you’ll have to install a better version of Windows on top, which is a good opportunity to get rid of all the bloatware Acer kindly bundles with the OS.

The lid color is used also for the touch pad, while the rest has a white finish

If you plan to use this netbook for some movies and gaming, you should know that you only get on board graphics, Intel GMA 3150. That’s not too much, if you ask us, but will take you through some 720p playback (if there aren’t many other things running in the background), but gaming is not a real option (unless you want to replay Age of Empires 1).

The netbooks come with either a 250 or 320 GB hard disk drive, both versions spinning at 5400 rpm. You can choose between two also when it comes to batteries; there’s a 3 cell and a 6 cell version, with the first offering 4 hours of use and the larger one can go for double the time. Happy comes with a bunch of USB 2.0 ports, audio jack, card reader, as well as WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and the option to buy HSPA/HSPDA modules for very fast and stable connectivity.

The cheapest Happy costs 299 euros in Europe (Italy, in particular) and for that you probably get the 3 cell battery and the single core processor. It’s a good price, all in all, considering you get a very cute and colorful netbook, something you don’t see everyday.

Also, if you’re willing to spend a little more, you can configure a pretty decent 10 inch machine, with a dual core processor, 8 hours of autonomy and ultra fast connectivity.