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Acer Computer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-6415 13.3" Notebook PC Review from Errol Brown mindhead1. Happy Medium, Pros:

- Thin, Light, Stylish

- Battery Life

- HDMI, Bluetooth

- Keyboard

- Build Quality

Cons:

- No Optical Drive (not really a con for me, maybe for others)

- Glossy Screen

- touch pad button is a little stiff

- speakers

- crapware

- no Vista Business option (this cost it a star)

My 6 year old Dell D600 finally died and I needed something small and light weight to use at client sites and when on the road. I have a Shuttle XPC for home/office use (video & audio editing & encoding, software & database development, etc.) and will be using the notebook primarily for email, web, word processing.

After researching options and playing around with different machines at local big box stores. I decided that:

- netbooks were to small for me (screen and keyboard)

- netbooks lacked the power/performance I needed/wanted

- ultra portables notebooks from Sony, Dell, Lenovo, etc. were nice and powerful, but very expensive

- Mac Book Pro 13 was compelling at the the just over $1000 price point. (I considered it for about 15 minutes knowing I could load Windows on it, but ultimately couldn’t overcome my anti-Apple bias. Maybe next time around.)

- I could live without a DVD drive

- A solid 4-5 hours of battery life would be great

Based on this I narrowed my search down to the Acer Timelines, MSI X340, Toshiba Satellite U505 series.

The MSI was nice and thin and sported a Core 2 Solo, 3GB RAM, and 320GB HD, but felt cheaply made compared to the Acer and Toshiba.

The Toshiba was well equipped and I liked the fact that I could go to Toshiba Direct and configure a machine to my exact specifications. In the end the bulkiness of the Toshiba caused me to rule it out. The Acer is more stylish and lighter.

While evaluating the 3810T I also compared it to the 4810T, which has a DVD drive and 14″ screen and is otherwise the same as the 3810T ($899) except for the processor (Core 2 Solo SU3500) and $699 price tag. If the 4810T had the same Core 2 Duo(SU9400)CPU as the 3810T I would have gone with the 14″ and paid up to $1000 for the honor.

During my unscientific performance test in the store, I could see a distinct difference in how the machines performed similar tasks. Both run Vista Home Premium (64 Bit), have 4GB of DD3 RAM and 5400RPM HDs, leaving me to conclude that the processor was what made the 3810T a snappier performer. I knew over the long run the sluggish performance would bother me more than screen size or lack of DVD.

The processor selection ultimately influenced my decision more than any other factor. While the Core 2 Duo in the 3810T is less powerful than the options from Toshiba, I was willing to trade some processing power for battery life.

The lack of a DVD drive may be a negative for some, but was not a deal breaker for me. I rarely use DVDs or CDs and think that these drives are going the way of the floppy. I much prefer having the smaller form factor and lighter weight over a DVD drive.

That brings me to the most pleasant and unexpected surprise of the 3810T, the HDMI port. I hooked the machine up to my 42″ Vizio, opened WMC, logged into Netflix and started watching movies. My expectations for video quality were low. I was very impressed with how the 3810T handled video playback and thus the machine will also see duty as a movie player in the living room.

Lastly, the battery life on this machine is great. I don’t know if it will give e 8 hours, but I have been able to make it through a workday with out having to re-charge and battery life to spare.

So far the only negatives comments I have about the 3810T are the glossy screen, touch pad button and inability to get a machine preloaded with Vista Business.

The screen is fine indoors, as long as there is not a lot of back light, but can be difficult to see when outdoors. The lack of Vista Business has not become a problem yet, but if I have a client situation where I have to connect to their network, I will either upgrade or create a dual boot with XP Pro (probably the latter).

The 3810T may not be ideal as a primary machine, unless your requirements are limited to web, email, word processing and limited multi-media. But as a secondary machine to cover basic tasks and ease of mobility, I think the 3810T is a nice combination of form factor, style, performance and value. It looks good, is easy to carry around, has good keyboard and screen real estate and can run all day at a sub $1000 price point.

To check price or purchase Acer Computer Aspire Timeline AS3810T-6415 13.3-Inch Notebook PC.

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