Igor Dodic

I was looking for the past few months to replace my brave four and a half years old Toshiba laptop with an ultraportable laptop. I did finally settle with a sandy bridge based Acer TimelineX 3830T.

My main requirements were a good battery life, lightness (I travel a lot and I’m through with carrying all that weight with me), and a decent CPU. I don’t play games on my computers, so I didn’t care about the graphic card as long as it could reproduce HD videos smoothly.

Acer TimelineX 3830T-2414G75n specs

 

Screen : 13,3” (very) glossy, 16:9 format at a1366×768 resolution
CPU : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz
RAM : 4GB DDR3 (2x2GB, no free slot…)
Graphics : Intel GMA HD3000
Output : VGA, HDMI
Hard drive : Seagate SATA-II 750GB
Ports : 2xUSB 2.0, one USB 3.0
Wireless adapter : Wifi, Bluetooth 3.0
Weight : 1.85kg (about 4.08 pounds)

More details about the core i5 2410m

I used a demo of photomatix to measure how long it took my old core duo based laptop to generate a pseudo HDR from a single RAW picture. Some painful 67 seconds. The core i5 did the same job in just 16 seconds. Quite an upgrade :)

The chiclet keyboard feels very comfortable to use (don’t mind the key disposition, I have a French keyboard).

I work on a 22” Samsung monitor at home. I ran into problems when trying to connect it through the VGA interface, I couldn’t get the right resolution. Since that monitor has a DVI input, I bought an inexpensive DVI female to HDMI male adapter, and I got the maximum resolution (1680×1050) right away.

I’m not a fan of glossy screens, to say the least, and that would be the main negative point about that laptop. It is a heresy to put a mirror like screen on a ultraportable device.

Battery life is incredible, with the wireless adapters off I got well over 9 hours of battery life. With an intensive use I had between 6 and a half and 7 hours.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a lightweight and powerful ultraportable computer (unless the person is a gamer). It is very well equipped, and quite future proof (with a USB 3.0 port). At just 569€, I’m delighted with my purchase.