I’ve had an Acer Aspire One for quite some time now but have yet to write anything about it. In fact I was one of the stupid few who rushed out on UK launch day to make sure I had one of those dinky little netbooks, only to find out a few days later the retail price would drop by over 20%. Lesson learned.

To be honest I was a little underwhelmed by the One at first with it’s restrictive operating system, totally locked down interface and very little information on hand to make it perform as it should. However the biggest dissappointment with the One was the lack of support for 3G modems.

I’ve been a 3 mobile internet user for about 9 months now, it’s a handy little device especially while commuting on the train much like the Aspire One. Finally it would seem Acer have pulled their finger out and got the two to work hand in hand. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be so here is how i did it:

1. Update the Aspire One using the ‘Live Update’ application in the ‘Settings’ section. If you have not already installed the patch it will show as an optional update at the bottom of the updates list so tick the box and let the One do it’s thing.

Aspire One Live Update

2. Once the updates are complete reboot the One. When it has loaded up again click on the blue triangle in the ‘Connect’ quick link section. You should now see a new application to open called ‘Mobile Partner’.

Aspire One Connect

3. Once ‘Mobile Partner’ has loaded plug in your USB modem (mine is the Huawei E220 from 3) and if everything has worked you after a few seconds you should see a popup to say that the device is recognised and is checking the status of the USIM. In the bottom left you will notice the network signal strength and operator.

4. This is the only difficult part, up until now eveything was plug and play. Select ‘Tools > Options’ from the menu and then select ‘Profile Management’ on the left. You will need to create a new profile and input the details as shown in the screenshot below. Please Note: These are the settings for the 3 UK mobile network, however the only difference on other networks should be the APN.

Mobile Manager Settings

5. Save the profile and make sure it is ‘Set as Default’ before returning to the main screen. Click the ‘Connect’ button and fingers crossed after a few seconds you will be connected and able to access the Internet as normal.

Aspire One 3G Connected

I’ve not had chance to fully test out the newly support 3G functionality of the Aspire One, and I can see that there are still a few things that need tidying up however at least now I don’t need to drag my Windows brick around just to work on the train.