First of all, I am a college student. With classes and being on the go about half the time, I wanted a capable machine that would cater my needs gaming on the go, with some power for multitasking and multimedia. I decided to look for a slim and lightweight 13-14 inch laptop over a high end netbook.
So in my search, I looked for the following:
-nice graphics
-good processing power to handle multitasking
-nice battery life when I am not near the wall
-Cosmetics were secondary for me
After much research, I had to decide between the 13.3" Asus U30JC-B1 or the 14" Acer Aspire Timeline X AS4820TG-6847. Before I found out about the Acer, I was going to go for the ASUS. Then I looked further and found the Acer. I was thankful that I did at the time of purchase, the Acer was only $50 more than the ASUS. The Acer was far better on graphics (the ASUS's Nvidia 310M versus the Acer's ATI 6550M, which is really a renamed version of the Mobility Radeon 5650 with minimal differences) and the processor was better as well (i3 370M versus i5 480M). However, the size and battery life was ASUS's win. Both have optical drives (DVD) and switchable graphics to the power-saving Intel HD graphics. After careful consideration, mainly with price, I went for the Acer Aspire.
After having it for a day, I was already very optimistic about my purchase.
*Cosmetics*
It weighed 2 pounds less than my old laptop, the Thinkpad R61i series, and is fairly slimmer and smaller. I do miss the durability build the Thinkpad offered. Honestly, I like the look of the Acer on the outside. However I do worry about the durability, especially of the thin screen. Beware of the fingerprint smears on the outside of the screen, though. Pretty unavoidable, which is slightly irritating. On the inside, the screen looks nice enough. However the keyboard and touchpad aren't impressive. The keyboard does have a nice feel to it when typing and the touchpad is responsive. Note that there is a touchpad button not buttons. However it works okay, just press left side for left clicking and vice versa. Overall, the build wasn't anything that would have me jumping out of my seat, but the laptop looks sleek and stylish.
*Performance on multitasking*
The computer is more than adequate for multitasking and multimedia, which wasn't unexpected but I was still happy to see that. I ran Winamp, Firefox, and AIM running with minimal lag. The only thing that was slowing down was the hard drive, which is a 5400 RPM 640 GB. I would gladly trade for a 7200 RPM hard drive even if I get only half the space. However for a 5400 RPM hard drive, the laptop boots and responds well enough. Laptop maintains appropriate temperatures, at least for my laptop. It gets warm from time to time, but the fan does a good job in keeping the laptop cool as possible.
*Battery Life*
Then the battery life test. Doing surfing, listening to music, making recovery discs, and running on balanced settings (and most importantly, not using the Radeon graphics) I yielded about 4-5 hours usage before I needed the plug. Considering what was going on during the battery drainage that was pretty impressive to me my Thinkpad can barely last 2-3 hours on similar battery settings when I first had it. I assume that the advertised 8 hour battery life must be attained when the laptop is barely doing anything at power saver with the DVD drive powered off. I only had the laptop for a day, so I will do more tests and update if necessary.
*Gaming graphics*
Then comes the more interesting test to me the gaming. I first installed Dragon Age Origins to the laptop, and imported the settings and saved files from the desktop to the laptop. I did some adjustments as I played in various parts of the game that would make the graphics card work hard. I found that I can run a 1280 x 768 screen with high settings, no AA with little to no problems. Sounds good. Then I installed Starcraft 2. After some tests, I found myself playing at custom settings (mostly medium with high settings on textures and movies) with 1280 x 720 resolution. I was merely testing from the single player campaign though, but there were little problems. Those were the only games I tested so far, but I might do some more testing if necessary. For now though, the graphics appear to be very good for budget gaming. WARNING though the laptop does get hot when gaming for a considerable time, especially for Starcraft 2. Be sure to have a cooling pad to minimize any potential damage done to the laptop in the long term.
*Other facts to point out*
The Acer Aspire operates with Windows 7, 64 bit. Windows 7 has worked wonders unlike Vista, so that and the fact that it's a 64 bit version was a big plus for me.
The webcam is 1.3 megapixel with a max resolution of 1280 x 1024. It's an improvement to the Logtech webcam I used on the desktop, which was only up to 640 x 480 and was probably 0.3 megapixel (forgot the specs). The webcam and microphone all work, so that's good.
The speakers are nice and small, but are not really worth writing home about.
There is a VGA and HDMI port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN connection. The 802.11b/g/n WLAN works well to connect wireless networks. There are no Firewire port, PC Card or Expresscard, or USB 3.0. However, considering the price for this laptop and the other specs it's not really a surprise.
Card reader and DVD drive works as advertised. Note that for the DVD drive the button to eject is on the right corner of the keyboard next to the speakers and not on the side of the laptop like many laptops. Not much of a pro or con for me.
Overall, the Acer Aspire laptop has nice specs with a smashing good price. This is a great budget gaming laptop, with a pretty strong discrete graphics card, an i5 CPU, and plenty of HD space. There are some things the laptop can improve on, but you really cannot argue the price. Recommended buy!
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Pros:
Strong CPU and GPU performance
64 bit operating system
Plenty of HD space
Good battery life considering the specs
Slim and lightweight
Good fan keeping the laptop cool outside of gaming
Size is good enough for portability
Cons (note: they are mostly minor):
Average build
Heat issues when gaming
Lack of USB 3.0, Bluetooth, Firewire, or PC/Express cards
5400 RPM hard drive
Too many useless programs installed
Recommendations:
Uninstall the bloatware
Get a cooling pad if you plan on gaming a lot
Verdict: 4.25 out of 5 stars
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This laptop runs like a friggin dream.
After playing L4D2 for an hour the temps remained around low 60ish and that blew me away. Considering my old gateway went above 90 celsius after such a session. Not to mention the superior performance compared to that of my gateway.
The laptop is really well built. The screen and body of the keyboard can be flexed since the system is so thin, but you would have to grab it awkwardly and do it on purpose without care to actually give it a hefty flex. Otherwise, I'm sold to this system, and the build quality is top notch. The middle of the keyboard can be flexed down, but when I type on it, it feels pretty solid so it's not an issue at all.
One con I can point out is how absurdly glossy it is. Then again, every laptop now a days seem to follow such an unfortunate trend. If the next iteration of the TimelineX series fixes the two minor issues above, then that is probably going to be the best laptop ever.
Few notes.
-The hinges on the laptop cover to body seem rather thin and unsupported. I don't know how long it will last, but judging from veteran owners, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue.
-The speakers on this is pretty bad. It's tolerable if you're justing letting music play in the background, but otherwise for serious listeners, it's poor. Good thing I have good in-ear monitors. :)
-Lots of bloatware, so either do a fresh install or get ready to do a lot uninstalling.
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I'm writing this review using that computer (that just arrived to my door). My friend (an audiophile that likes Acer products as well) helped me to test it as well, but it is just a first-sight impression. I can't say if it is robust because I didn't take it in my backpack and made a subway ride, for example. But let's try it.
This computer is light and slim. I just compared it to a Dell Latitude E5410 the width and height are almost the same, but it is slimmer and lighter (but the Dell one is also sturdier, and the equivalent customized Dell computer costs between 849.00 and 1009.00 as well). It is black (brushed metal) and the palm rest inside is dark gray (brushed metal as well resembles the titanium color).
Some things were to be done in order to made it lighter and cheaper. The first one is the lid is very thin but slightly flexible it is made of brushed metal, but a very thin one. Fortunately, the optical drive wasn't taken off this computer (but the AS3820 has no optical drive). It adds some weight to the computer, but avoids to carry a portable DVD reader everywhere. I know a lot of people that have such computers without DVD drives that walk with USB DVD readers "just for case" although it is rarely necessary in practice, if you really need one, you are out of luck.
The second one is that several ports and switches were left out there is no Bluetooth, no wireless switch (you need to hit Fn-F3 instead), no Firewire, no ExpressCard slot, no eSATAp and no USB 3.0 ports. There is a 4th USB 2.0 instead it is difficult to find a 4th USB port, even in 17" computers, so it is a real bonus.
There is a real HDMI port, and it works nicely with DVD films (just don't forget to set correctly the audio output before playing your video it isn't automatic, but even MacBooks are not automatic). Don't forget to use the correct video output (if you're using the HDMI port) using the Fn-F5 key combination.
The keyboard is comfortable it resembles my old FZ-series VAIO but it is more noisy I like noisy keyboards, but there is a lot of people that hates noisy keyboards. It is not back-lit but lighting just drain batteries :) There is no numeric keyboard but I prefer larger keys than a numeric keyboard in a notebook this size I hate to use that 15.3" notebooks that have small keys and numeric keyboards.
This computer has a 640GB, 5400RPM drive. It could have a 500GB, 7200RPM drive like the Dell I mentioned before or better yet, a Seagate XT hybrid drive or something like that. Hybrid drives help the battery life, and aren't that expensive. But I know that spacier drives sell better than quicker ones :) so Acer had chosen to use a spacier one (a good drive in my machine: a Western Digital WD6400BEVT, that has ShockGuard and SecurePark technologies. But it is left to the discretion of the manufacturer maybe your machine could have a Toshiba or a Hitachi drive instead.)
My friend says that the sound from the speakers is good for a laptop this size (the speakers are small but don't sound like a toy); I have to test it with good headphones as well. It could be a bonus for someone that uses the speakers for a Skype or a MSN conversation.
The touch-pad is acceptable as well (it is multi-touch) and can be turned off with Fn-F7.
Tested a SDHC card and it was correctly read. I have no SDXC or MMC cards but the manufacturer says that SDXC cards can be read as well. It has a spring (you know that the card was correctly inserted because the spring locks it in the computer) and a dummy card (I am paranoid about dummy cards. I guess I will lose that dummy card in the first week. But dummy cards help to avoid getting a lot of dirty balls inside the computer.)
I have to find out a N wi-fi network (I am using the B wi-fi network of my hotel, that sports only 11Mbps) in order to check if the Broadcom card is correctly getting 300 Mbps as advertised in N wi-fi networks.
It has a Gigabit (Atheros) wired network port as well.
I give it 4 stars because it could have USB 3.0 and eSATAp ports and a Bluetooth connections, or even a BluRay drive. But if it helps to save battery, I am glad to forgive such things (I never used Firewire or modem ports in any of my notebooks :) but Bluetooth is good for keeping my mobile phones synchronized. ) .
The price is right for such a new release (I have seen an advertisement of this machine in a recent Wired magazine, I believe).
The price includes the Radeon 6550M and the additional 1GB video memory.
Update (2/28/2011) Now I have this machine for almost 3 weeks and I can say that:
The price dropped a lot (it's now $ 729) and it makes it a true bargain I really liked this machine.
The keyboard has some problems for people that just use too much force in typing as me. The '1' key get slightly stuck but it is behaving better now that I promised it to hit it more softly :) Now it is only the "Del" key that has some problems...
Battery life is not exactly 8 hours as advertised but it is very good (5 hours for common use like surfing the web and listening to music.) (Maybe if I turned off the antivirus the battery life could be better and reach the advertised 8 hours :) )
Something is misconfigured in my Vaio quad-core i7 so I can say that in common use, this Acer (although being only a humble dual-core i5, not a quad-core i7) is faster than that Vaio :) . Obviously it is not a scientific, proved thing: SiSoftware Sandra says me that the i7 is really faster than the i5. Maybe removing all bloatware of the Vaio could help somewhat :)
This machine runs very cold, compared to all that machines I had before so I can't use it for heating my bed in a cold hotel :).
So I raise my note to 4.5 (not exactly 5 due to the keyboard problems).
Honest reviews on Acer Aspire TimelineX AS4820TG-6847 14-Inch HD Display Laptop
After 4 years of experience with 15.6in laptop, I think 14in is the best size as a carry-on.
Weight:This Acer laptop is 4.65lb. The battery is equally heavy as the brick so I guess the total weight would be above 6lb. What Acer could improve on is removing dvd drive (they're probably going to do that on the following series) then hopefully lowers the price by $30 or replace with 3.0 USB.
Battery life: I watched a movie with max volume 1hr45min which used 36% battery and music for 1hour with medium volume 21%, wireless was on but monitor was dimmed a little. So I think it can last 4-5hr with normal daily use.
Good features: Keyboard can switch to number pad.Quiet fan and good ventilation. 4 2.0 USB ports all on the sides(my toshiba had 2 on the back which are less useful). 1.3M webcam works good.
Performance: most of the 2008,2009 games are playable in detail graphics, 2010 games, some in high some in medium. (according to Benchmark graphics card) The only game I have tried so far is King's bounty2008. CPU temp went up to 65C, HD 38C in a RM temp that was 45F. In order to keep cool, the fan gets noisier.
My complaints: Some featured software that I don't know how useful they are, however, they definitely slow down the Windows start. MOST FRUSTRATION COMES FROM WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM. COMPATIBILITY ISSUE WITH MANY PROGRAMS I HAVE BEEN USING. SO THE FIRST FEW DAYS,I TRIED TO INSTALL SOFTWARE, ERRORS POP OUT AND CRASHED 4 TIMES. OTHER LANGUAGE PACKS ARE EXCLUDED TO LURE ME TO UPGRADE TO ULTIMATE ($130). FOR BILINGUAL PEOPLE, IT CAN'T BE MORE FRUSTRATING WHEN PROGRAMS CAME OUT WITH ??%%??xx%%xxoo. THE OFFICE 2010 IS STARTER, NO POWERPOINT. MICROSOFT, I KNOW IT COST YOU A LOT MONEY DURING DEVELOPMENT BUT THERE IS NEARLY NO PRODUCTION COST. DON'T YOU WANT TO MAINTAIN MONOPOLY. I'LL PROBABLY INSTALL LINUX WITHIN NEXT FEW WEEKS. ALSO, LET US SWITCH TO OPEN OFFICE. BTW, BRICK GETS REALLY HOT WHEN PLAYING GAMES AND CHARGING.
Updates: The screen goes black then come back when switching between battery and plugin. Firefox always crash when it happens.
Overall, it is an above average laptop with good gaming ability. Portability can be improved, for instance, the brick, the dvd rom.
ps. maybe heavy brick has more longevity???
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This 14" laptop is very impressive. Thin, light, fast, smart touchpad and HDMI, really, do you need anything else?
I bought this for my wife, now I want it. Score another for the wife!
