Acer Aspire TimelineX AS4830T-6642 14-Inch Laptop (Cobalt Blue Aluminum) - Official New Excellent Gadgets, Tools & Accesories

I’ve only had this laptop for a week, but here are my first impressions so far:
2nd Gen Intel iCore5: This gen of intel has the new `Sandy Bridge’ as part of the processor. I don’t know how to explain it, but my cousin is a computer tech and in layman’s terms says it makes the processor more efficient which allows for the next feature to do what it does….

Incredible battery life: Most of you will have read that in the description it claims that the battery can last 8-9hrs. And….. its true! I thought it was too good to be true, but charge the battery up to 100% and you won’t have to worry about the battery. (Although, I am sure battery life varies, depending on how much you are trying to do. I plan to test this out to further extent a little later.) For example, I sat down and caught up on 4, 45-min long TV episodes…the battery notification area said it still had enough to do it all over again, stating that it had enough to last a little over 4 hours. Amazing!

Amazing Audio: Now I can’t compare this to what other laptops have, like HP’s Beats Audio, only to what my previous laptop had, Altec Lansing, which I still think sounds good after 4 years, considering how the performance of the laptop overall has plummeted. (Now this is a Dolby Home Theatre sound system and majority of homes have that sound system on their TV’s and, well, it hardly ever disappoints. Now back to the review.) While I was watching those TV shows, I mentioned above, I had plugged in my headphones…I had the volume at 50% and it nearly blew my eardrums out! I had to turn down the laptop volume to 20% & then lower the websites volume by another 50% & it was still plenty loud. Without the headphones, I keep both the iTunes volume and the laptop volume at 50% and it’s more than enough. I played it at max volume and what surprised me the most was how little the music got distorted played that loud.

Keyboard/Touchpad: (Just let me say this, I love the chiclets keys!) On another site someone mentioned how close the backslash bar & enter key are, in comparison to the other keys. They raised concern that one might hit one of the keys by accident (ie `enter’ instead of the `backslash’ or vice versa) I assure you that is not the case. Once you get used to the spacing between all the keys, it’s going to be pretty hard to hit the wrong key. I have no complaints about the touchpad, it has great response, and I actually don’t hit this touchpad with my palm, seeing as how my hands fall squarely outside of it.

USB 3.0: I’m not sure about what this can do yet, as I don’t have any accessories that run on 3.0, but it seems that the laptop finds the software and installs it at a much quicker pace that I’m used to. Can’t wait to see start getting products that run on USB 3.0′s.

ClearFi: I have yet to test this out entirely, but so far my laptop has “found” my other laptop and Sony TV. I just need to see what exactly can be played from my libraries on either one. I figure it must be something like the `Shared Libraries’ feature on iTunes but instead it used Windows Media Player.
Other than that, it is eerily quiet. The hard drive is so quiet, when I step away and the screen turns off, I keep thinking that the laptop has gone to sleep! Even the CD drive is quiet, this is going to take some getting used to, haha.

In closing, after a Compaq that lasted only 2 years (ending with a burnt out hard drive and screen), an HP that lasted 2 years, and my last HP Pavilion dv2000 series lasted 4 years (with several repairs made to the motherboard, screen and hard drive as well), I can say that none of them ever started off this well and I can only hope that it continues in the long run.

I know I might have missed some things, it’s only been a week and I’m still learning the ropes around Windows 7 and all the tricks this thing has up its sleeve. But if you have any questions ask away and I’ll try and get back to you A.S.A.P.

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***UPDATED 7/26/11***
So it’s been a little over a month & I stand behind everything that I stated above, no cons to report. You can lift the screen with one finger in the middle but I feel that my thumb is going to break the webcam, so I’ve adjusted to lifting with one finger on each side, still just as easy. Anyways, here are some updates on features I’ve finally gotten around to.

If you use your laptop to charge other items, an ipod, a phone, etc., you’ll like this feature. The USB 3.0 charges your things, even when the laptop is turned off. You can adjust the settings if you don’t want it to keep charging things when you’re battery has hit 30% for example. It was a real life saver when I realized I had forgotten the wall adapter for my phone charger, so I just hooked it up to the…

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I spent a lot of time looking for the notebook I wanted for how I use it. My requirements were: Long battery life, DVD tray, thin, small screen, multimedia use, and cost. For me, it’s a laptop for storing music, playing movies, watching Netflix and hulu, and browsing the web. Here’s my breakdown of why it’s perfect for me:

14″ Screen. This is the smallest screen size I could find while still having a DVD tray. Sony’s new Series S has a 13.3″ screen that includes a DVD tray, but the screen felt flimsier, looked duller, and the price was $300 more expensive. Sony offers a new sheet battery to double the life for an extra $150 (they claim 15 hours), but that wasn’t a good enough selling point for me. Acer’s screen has great viewing angles, great color, super thin profile yet sturdy when opening and closing. It’s less than an inch thick, and still feels sturdy. It makes the laptop more portable and easier to pack. I commute to work on my bike, so the smaller it fits in my bag the better.

Intel Core i5-2410. It’s ~20% more powerful than previous generation of i5′s with the same TDP. That means more energy efficient at tasks for a longer battery life, and more power to transcode and multitask.

USB 3.0 port. I have a HDD docking station with a 3.0 plug for copying my library. 2.0 transfers at about 25MB/s, while 3.0 tansfers at about 50-60MB/s. It also allows charging from the port while your laptop is off, which I know will come in handy.

The bottleneck for file transferring is most likely the laptop HDD, which I can confirm is a WD Scorpio Blue 640GB. This is a great drive for both energy efficiency and a balance of storage performance. If you chose to replace it with an SSD, the drive is easy to get to with a small philips screwdriver.

Wireless is good, I get a good signal anywhere in my house. Haven’t tried bluetooth, but I will eventually. RAM is 4GB which is good enough for me, I have no need for more. Sound is good, especially for a laptop. Plugging in headphones sounds fantastic. Track pad is great, love the side scrolling zones.

I looked at a few laptops with better graphics. Both Nvidia Optimus and ATI switches offer much better gaming fps. But I have a desktop for gaming (3-screen eyefinity setup) so I don’t care about gaming on my laptop. I don’t have any games installed, so can’t comment.

I had to spend about an hour in Win7 removing bloat-wear, and then burning recovery disks. I also removed ClearFi, as I have no need or want for it. I already installed Ubuntu 11, and haven’t had a problem with anything in Linux. They both boot just fine alongside each other.

Battery Life! In Ubuntu while installing updates, battery drain gives ~5 hours of active use. While just browsing the web and playing music in Win7, battery life is estimated at 7 hours. No, it’s not 9 hours, but it’s great for how I actually use it.

I personally think this is the best 14″ laptop for the price on the market today. It’s perfect for me.

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i have a Dell running Windows 7, but it is a few years old, and I wanted to try the new i5 chip. Last week I purchased a Lenovo, but it was too heavy, cost over $1k, and the optical drive didn’t work. I don’t really care about an optical drive, but it wasn’t what I wanted, so I took the opportunity to return it without a fee. Then I looked on Amazon.

This computer was highly ranked, and although I have only had it a few hours, I concur. The only surprise I had was it DOES have an optical drive. No biggie, although I didn’t want one. I watch movies online or load them into my itunes. We also have a portable drive, bought for my netbook.

Love the look of the computer (I always peel off the intel, windows and acer stickers). Love the responsive trackpad. Can’t really talk about speed right now (making factory restore discs), but since my current laptop is a couple years old, I expect to be impressed. I was impressed with the price, too.

I was a little hesitant about the Acer brand, but I had an Acer netbook several years ago and it worked great (until I gave it to my daughter when I bought a tablet). I asked a computer repair person about reliability, and he said they were all about the same. Apple was even catching up. The reason is people who work for HP go to Apple, people from Apple go to Lenovo, etc. It really is a small world, even in computer manufacturing.

The computer is really thin (looks GREAT) and is tons lighter than my 15″ Dell. The bloatwear was easy to remove, and once I got that recycle bin onto the task bar, I had a clean desktop.

Oh, another surprise. I had to be at home last week, to sign for the Lenovo. I paid for 1-day shipping for this computer, and worked from home today. The computer was left without a signature. I guess Amazon boxes are so common, they take the risk.

Amazon, you came through again. I really rely on the reviews on Amazon. Since I didn’t have to pay tax, and one-day shipping was only $3.99 (I am an Amazon Prime member), I am very satisfied with the price. The computer is everything I wanted (plus a DVD drive), and so far, everything is loading and installing just fine. I also bought a Belkin cable, so I can get everything off this old computer before I give it to my daughter.

UPDATE: I downgraded this review because the laptop does not have HDCP, which is necessary to play certain videos. When I contacted Acer to ask where I might find some updated drivers with content protection, they said I only had a standard warranty, so they wouldn’t help me. Since I only had the computer 2 days, this did not seem to be an unreasonable request. So BEWARE – this model has a standard warranty, and Acer will not help you with any set-up issues.

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