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We have actually made our own review of the Acer Aspire One here. We target people who care about what technology can do for them not the other way round.
The first thing that strikes me, though, is the weakness of the design. The homepage really needs some work - it lacks "pull". I'd like to be more specific but it's a difficult issue to describe concisely. I would recommend consulting a designer or doing some design research on similar sites in the same niche because with a better design I think the site could have a lot of appeal.
In the Browse section instead of listing the manufacturer logo's start listing the netbooks (with pictures). Then have a way to filter out by manufacturer, price range, etc... Kinda like how NewEgg handles it (eg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE... ) Have a little checkbox in the browse section next to each picture to select netbooks, and then use it for comparison.
Your new Search Netbooks page would then have the faceted search in the left hand column like New Egg does and allow you to drill down into manufacturer, price, etc. Each result line item in the right hand column would have a compare checkbox that you could use to set up comparisons.
I'm also assuming you're targeting peeps who've already decided they want to get a netbook and it's just a matter of which one, so take this with a grain of salt: I'm one of those guys who doesn't quite get the netbook thing or understand why I'd want one, so perhaps some content related to what they are and why I'd want one would be cool.
I'd also consider trying to aggregate some of the review data for each model like Consumer Search does for TVs (http://www.consumersearch.com/hdtv). It's one thing to see the specs, but once I've narrowed that down it would be nice to see some review data too.
Overall a good start, I think. Good luck!
A few things:
1) It would be great if I could choose multiple models to compare right out of the gate versus having to navigate to each page. This may already be possible and I just missed it.
2) More review content would be helpful. Users really react well to reviews from both experts and other consumers. The links to the Amazon ratings are great, but it would be nice to have easy access to more. Also, seems like a great opportunity for you to layer over some proprietary content. This can be your own editorial content or the ability for users to post their own reviews or both. It will make the site seem more authoritative.
Good stuff!
1. After clicking the "compare" button, say something like "Choose another netbook to compare ?" And don't make me click "browse", show the models immediately (preferably the models, not brands).
2. Include the "compare" buttons beside each netbook on the page that lists all the models (less clicks for those who know the models they want to compare already... alternately you could use checkboxes).
3. Show a mouse-over popup that lists the main specs of each netbook (CPU, memory, etc.)
4. Change "Stop Comparing" to something like "Remove"... during browsing, think of how to show a little shopping-cart-like list of the models you've already chosen.
Something is so wrong here, but I just can't spot it ;)
I had an Acer Aspire One for two months, the 6 cell 160GB HD version. It was just a little too cramped for me and I replaced it with a HP 1035NR. It is not much bigger, but the keyboard and screen are now just big enough that they are more usable.
http://www.amazon.com/1035NR-10-2-Inch-Netbook-Intel-Process...
netbook.tracker.com laptop.tracker.com etc
The small, simple sites are what I love. Get to the point, leave me alone :-)
Well, your site doesn't answer the netbook question I want to know. Why would anyone get an Aspire One A110L over an EEE 901? To me it looks like equivalent models are about the same price, except the 901 has twice the battery.
I went with the MSI Wind, for what it's worth.
You will start acquiring affiliations if your site rises above the noise level and this will test the hell out of your integrity. Say Acer sends you nice top-of-the-line yet-to-be-released netbook, which is also complimentary. Even if you write a bad review. They will even send you the next model too. And they will keep sending and sending them showing you a considerable amount of goodwill. Will you be able to ignore it ? Alternatively, are you prepared to fight defamation lawsuits and bogus DMCA notices ?
Point being is that virtually all review sites are started with an intention of being unbiased. You appear to think that there are no such sites in your niche, but surely there were some in the past ... ever wondered what happened to them ? :)