Acer Aspire One 721 Laptop – First Look

At first glance, the Acer Aspire One 721 is little more than a larger version of the Aspire One 521netbook I reviewed earlier this summer. 

Both models have the same AMD Athlon II Neo K125 CPU and ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics. They both have wide, flat keyboards and similar case designs. But while the Aspire One 521 has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display and runs Windows 7 Starter, the Aspire One 721 is a larger machine with an 11.2 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium.

Acer sent me an Aspire One 721 to review, and the specs are quite similar to those of its smaller cousin. But the case is bigger, the display can handle more pixels, and the laptop comes with a more powerful version of Windows 7. On the other hand, despite the larger keyboard, the touchpad appears to be the same size on both models, and the battery doesn’t last quite as long on the Aspire One 721.

The demo unit featured in this review has a 1.7GHz AMD K125 single core processor, Radeon HD 4225 graphics, 2GB of memory, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and a 6 cell battery. It’s available for purchase for about $430.