I do my serious computing at home on a well-appointed desk top and when traveling need a laptop that can at least handle the kinds of work I perform with my desktop. For the past 2 years I used a Dell XPS M1330 for this purpose and came to literally loathe the machine (heavy and unreliable, with disappointing performance), which ended my respect for Dell and sent me looking elsewhere for something more to my liking. To see if I could get along with a smaller machine I first tried traveling with a $200 netbook, which I found to be simply too weak for my needs; however, I found the light weight and small size to be a major plus, so I went on the prowl for the same kind of form factor in a powerful machine, which led me eventually to the 1380T. At present there aren't many machines in this category, and from what I could tell from specs and user comments, this one is at the top of the list at the present time, which is why I bought one. There has been nothing from my experience to date to indicate otherwise and in fact, my shift to the Acer 1380T (I7 CPU) from the Dell has been like coming up for fresh air, a five star experience.
I've had this unit for about a month now and to date have taken it on one serious road trip, which has demonstrated the machine is all I had hoped for, and actually a good bit more. Other reviewers have thoroughly gone through what this machine has to offer so I will limit myself to what I have found useful.
1. It has handled everything I do with my desktop (something I could not say for the Dell) let me hasten to add I don't do games, which may need a dedicated graphics card for best effect (Asus has a machine in this class that such users might consider, although why one would want to play those kinds of games on a machine this small is beyond me)
2. It runs cool and has a very long battery life (my initial read is that it will easily go 8 or 9 hours when all you are doing is routine text processing kinds of stuff, about 4 times as long as the Dell)
3. It is in that magic weight range of around 3 lbs and its thickness and weight are not amplified by the battery (unlike many other laptops)
4. The screen is excellent (others have carped about viewing angle, but for a single user it is great, and in this size range, isn't that what matters?)
5. I actually like the "chiclet" key board, which has "homing" ridges on the f and j keys that help with touch typing ... I find individual key size to actually be substantial, and touch type at least as easily on this keyboard as the one I have at home ... maybe I have a light touch, but I don't notice any keyboard flex others seem to sense
6. The machine feels substantial, even with all the plastic (which I'm sure holds weight down)
7. The charger does not use a proprietary input, is light, consisting of a single wall wart with a configurable plug (for which you can get alternatives for other country's outlets), configurable meaning you can position the prongs for horizontal or vertical (and it's a 2 prong non-polarized plug) my guess is that the total travel package is a good 2 lbs under the Dell.
Are there annoyances? There is the usual bloatware, but no worse than what I've experienced with other vendors ... it just means spending some time removing or disabling it. There is no optical drive, but that's a weight trade-off, and after honestly examining my usage patterns, I couldn't even remember the last time I required one on a trip. I have a perfectly good $50 Samsung external USB that works just fine for the rare occasions I have to do something with that almost outmoded technology.
My one peeve with Acer is their not supplying system reinstall media, expecting users to create their own. It took 1.25 hours to produce the 4 DVDs their on board utility produces from the partition on the hard disk they have set aside with this content. My advice, start it going while you are watching TV or reading a book and just be prepared for it to take awhile. It would be nice if Acer would set this up so you could create a bootable USB or flash instead.
Surprises? From other reviews I expected to have issues with the touch pad, but have not at all. I've always hated touch pads because I somehow manage to hit them with my thumb at the wrong time with annoying effects, but not this one. Otherwise, it seems to work no better or worse than any other I've used across a spectrum of manufacturers. I also like having less palm space, since I've come to believe that is something that helps to keep my thumbs away from the touch pad.
My other surprise was with the built-in Bluetooth. I have an old Palm TX that has information I wanted to sync onto this machine, only to find USB sync for Win 7 x64 is not being supported by Palm software. A little investigation indicated I might be able to sync via Bluetooth. Sure enough, once enabled, both devices located each other and sync just worked. Incidentally, if you are new to x64 you too will likely find that some of your older apps won't run without an upgrade to a 64-bit version (sometimes this is just a question of needing to locate a 64-bit driver, but some apps do things that are incompatible with 64-bit architecture).
I have not used an external monitor with this machine (yet) and don't have any particular reason to use hdmi or sound I/O, so check what other reviewers have to say if those are important to you. The card reader is the usual for this type of machine and having a hot key for enabling/disabling wi-fi or Bluetooth is definitely more user friendly than the physical switch Dell supplied.
All in all, Acer has managed to wrap a lot of very nice stuff into a very small package. From my first month of usage, I believe it to be by far the best of the dozen or so laptops I've worked with over the years.
January 18 update OK, I've now really put this machine through some heavy lifting. For a week long workshop I was involved in, I used this laptop for extensive editing of PowerPoint slides. Presentation files ranged from a couple of slides to over 500, and sometimes I had maybe as many as 10 of them open cutting and pasting to a master. I also had Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat open at various points, not to mention Outlook, Excel, and web browsers. The machine never crashed. Every now and then I noted a bit of a pause when the system's power misering required spinning the hard drive back up, so a SSD might be worth considering, although this was a minor annoyance. I forgot my charger and went my first day on battery alone without running dry, at least 5 hours of serious use including internet for a chunk of the time. It may be of interest that the generic nature of the charge port allowed me to use a colleague's (for an Aspire one netbook), which while a bit less potent was sufficient to restore full charge in a few hours. The final presentation had notes on each slide and apparently PowerPoint writes to pdf in image form if you ask for notes, which showed one non-gaming reason reason for having a graphics card. It took the machine quite a bit of time to do it. An app we worked on had a bug that was revealed because the CPU evidently runs a good bit faster than Intel's integrated graphics processor. On the other hand, Photoshop runs perfectly fine (at least for the kinds of editing I typically do). As for using projectors and external monitors, the machine brought both up effortlessly and automatically (Casio projector, miscellaneous monitor). For airplane usage and travel, it is the perfect size for today's cramped seating, even room on the tray table for my nano mouse. I managed to get along OK with the touchpad for routine stuff, but when it came to extended or precision work, I pulled out my nano mouse. Communications and networking were flawless, across multiple variations of network configurations. One more thing that may be of interest to some, the built-in mic can be set to pass through via Sound in the control panel, which means if you plug in an external mic and hook up a set of powered speakers, the machine can easily be used as a quick and dirty PA system (my last Dell system did this quite poorly this one is quite good).
There is nothing about the machine to change my review, except to note it is proving to be even better than I originally thought.
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I think the other reviewers have done a brilliant job and I fully agree with their assessments. I would only add the following points regarding ports......
I was all set to buy an 11.6" Airbook. That plan came to a screeching halt when I discovered that it didn't have an Ethernet port. The best you could do was to buy a separate USB dongle that would provide 10/100 Ethernet. For an IT professional who is used to walking into a client's server room and taking a 50GB backup copy of a database in no time via gigabit ehternet that was just not going to work out. I don't fancy stepping back to 1990! Also a lot of hotels only have wired Ethernet and I just want to be able to plug in and go. Not spend time playing find-the-adapter.
I also found out that the Airbook has a mini DisplayPort. To plug into an external VGA monitor you need (yep, you guessed it) another adapter. To plug into a TV or projector you need yet another adapter for HDMI. All these are sold separately and are more junk to cart around the world. They are also the exact thing that you would find that you have lost (or left back in the hotel) just when you needed to plug into a projector to give a presentation ;)
So I was all set to lay out serious $$$ on a Sony ultra-portable when I came across the TimelineX. I've had it for a month now and I couldn't be happier with it. For the professional on the road that doesn't want to lug around some 15.6" monster this little guy is the perfect replacement. Compared to the Sony ultra-portables the price is outstanding value.
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I just purchased this laptop as a portable solution to my Dell Studio, and i have to say that this is the first laptop that i have ever purchased, and as an IT professional I purchase quite a few, that has exceeded all expectations! I often work with demanding applications such as Adobe Premier CS5, Autodesk 3DS Max 2010, and Maya, and have to say that this machine is able to run them without any issues. Now im not saying this is a replacement for a desktop powerhouse system for heavy graphics editing and such but it is nice to have a small portable rig capable of opening these files and making modifications on the go. Now unsurprisingly this machine only rates a Windows Experience Index of 3.5 due solely to the fact there is no dedicated graphics card, but come on, if your seriously purchasing this with hopes of gaming in mind chances are your not even doing enough research to even be reading this review. But any way more about the product; upon first glance when taking this machine out of its box, and i say machine because i dare not call a system this powerful a "netbook", is "Wow, an i7 in this? Really?". Well lets get one thing straight, iX is a technology, not a specific model series of processors, but it does pack one heck of a surprising punch for a machine this size. As stated above I can easily run some of todays most demanding apps without any problems, and the 4GB of DDR3 RAM is quite handy! And for once, a battery life as advertised! with radios off and screen dimmed but still easily readable i got a 7+ hour life while doing normal operations such as email and word processing. Now obviously battery life drops when you do more demanding tasks, so as a comparison I am currently writing this review from this laptop with WiFi ON, music playing, screen brightness all the way up, and installing a game in the background and my battery life is just above 5 hrs!!! Now how many systems can claim that! Some people have made a couple small comments about a small amount of flex in the keyboard, and it is true, the keyboard does flex maybe a mm or so, but it is not noticeable unless looking at the kb whilst typing, otherwise i find the response and feedback of the keyboard pleasantly comfortable, and the layout is great and you should have no issues typing on it as the dimensions are very close to a full keyboards dimensions with the exception of a few keys such as arrows, but you can get used to that.
Overall I must say that this machine is well worth the money and having now used it, I would have happily paid a hundred or two more for it!
Honest reviews on Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
I have had this laptop for less than a year and it is still under warranty. I have already sent it in twice to be fixed. The first time was because of a crashing issue and the second time was because a group of pixels in the LCD screen died. Each time I had to pay for shipping and was without a computer for more than a week.
My real issue is that after getting the laptop back from the pixels issue, less than two days later more pixels died. I called ACER customer support and they told me that I would have to pay for the screen to be replaced this time even though the laptop was still under warranty. I find it unacceptable to be required to pay to replace something that they were just supposed to have fixed two days ago! I also think that having to send a laptop in for servicing 3 times in less than a year is unreasonable.
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I'm a photojournalist who looked long and hard to find a new laptop. I need a computer I can leave in the car trunk or carry in a fanny pack while shooting assignments, so it has to be tough, compact and powerful. The Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118 solved the problem of cramming near-desktop power into a Netbook-sized package. I've only had it for a few weeks, but here are my impressions:
EXTERIOR:
1. Not as pretty as a Macbook Air, but what is? It also costs less.
2. The tough exterior has a nice texture that is easy to grip and shrugs off fingerprints. The Acer power brick weighs just seven ounces; half the size and weight of my old laptop brick.
3. The 11.6" glossy screen looks great so long as you view it "on axis." The Acer runs at 1366 by 768, 32 bit, 60 Hertz. The 128 MB dedicated video memory is a bottleneck if you are a gamer or want to do video editing. I watched a movie using an external DVD player with no problem, though. The frame contains a fixed user-facing web cam and mike.
4. Unlike the MacBook Air, the compact TimeLineX AS1830T is loaded with three USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI port, and an old-style VGA monitor socket! The built-in multi-card reader will take SD cards, but not CF cards.
5. There is no built-in optical drive. No PCMCIA slot.
6. People complain about the touch pad; they're right. I forgot my mouse one day and it was marginally less painful than smashing my forehead against the keyboard until I pass out. NOTE: I uninstalled the Alps touchpad software and it actually works better.
UNDER THE HOOD:
1. Computers this size rarely contain the powerful i7-680UM processor. It easily runs high-end programs under Win 7 64-bit Home Premium with Service Pack 1. Bloatware wasn't too bad.
2. It comes with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM. I bumped this up to 8 gigabytes, but honestly, I couldn't see much difference. It's just that RAM is so cheap!
3. It has WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet connectivity. I haven't used the Bluetooth, so can't say much about it. On field assignments with no WiFi access I've transmitted photos to clients though my Android cellphone using two methods: as a WiFi hotspot and using PdaNet with a USB tether. Easy--no issues.
4. This Acer contains a roomy 500 GB hard drive. Curiously, they chose a slower 5400 RPM HD, though it seems plenty fast. I assume they opted for it to maximize battery life.
5. Which highlights the TimelineX AS1830T remarkable battery life. I spent the first day continuously loading software, updates, rebooting, testing and interfacing my programs. Even with the WiFi on and the screen at maximum brightness, the Acer still had a few gasps of power after five solid hours of heavy lifting. Sweet!
IN USE:
1. The boot time to the first Windows musical tone is 55 seconds. Much slower than a MacBook Air's SSD boot time. (Read the "SSD UPDATE" at the end of this review, though.)
2. The Aspire TimelineX AS1830T easily runs the full-on Photoshop CS6 64-bit, PhotoMechanic, Firefox and other programs simultaneously. Massive Canon 5DII RAW files load in CS6 in about six seconds. Not as good as my desktop, but excellent for field work.
BOTTOM LINE:
The TimelineX is powerful, small and affordable with remarkable battery life. As an added bonus, Acer designed this machine for easy user upgrades:
----------SSD UPDATE----------
Some users turn their TimelineX into an Ultrabook by swapping out the hard drive for a rugged, ultra-fast solid state hard drive (SSD). Both the RAM and the hard drive are easily accessible under a single clearly-marked panel attached with five standard Phillips screws.
I installed both a Crucial 256 GB m4 SSD and 8 GB of RAM in this Acer Aspire TimelineX. Holy smokes, what an easy and worthwhile upgrade! Boot time is now just 30 seconds, but the big news was Photoshop CS6. It performs heavy duty image processing in 1/2 to 1/3 the time! Battery life is extended, it runs cooler and quieter, and the laptop is more shock resistant. It now compares to my very powerful desktop computer and is STILL cheaper than a MacBook Air. If you can afford this upgrade, do it! I turned the original 500 GB hard drive into an external hard drive with a Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure for about ten bucks.
I posted a video on cloning and installing the SSD and RAM into this laptop. This was my first cloning/replacement/upgrade and it was a piece of cake.
By the way, there is a higher quality You Tube post available that Amazon won't let me link. Search "How to install a SSD into a TimelineX laptop" on You Tube. Beware--the audio kinda sux. I bought a good mike after I shot this.
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UPDATE: I've been using this souped-up laptop for over a year now and have been very pleased with my purchase. Small and powerful, it really kicks bootie! Absolutely no issues. There are some neat new ultrabooks out there now, so do your homework. But even the best will have a hard time beating this machine.
