Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030093,49302975,00.htm

Reviewed 14 July 2009

Reviewed by Dan Ackerman

Acer's new Timeline series of laptops, including the 13-inch Aspire Timeline 3810T, aims to combine the thin, sexy designs of more expensive machines with cost-saving, low-power processors. But that's a direction many PC makers are moving in, thanks to budget-friendly CPUs such as the AMD Athlon Neo and Intel CULV family, so Acer needs a bigger hook, such as the 3810T's claims of all-day, 8-hour computing.

The 3810T is available in two configurations: the version with an Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 CPU is available for around £550, and the model with an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor (reviewed here) costs around £680. 

Design
While perhaps not as striking at the MSI X340, another slim, 13-inch laptop, the 3810T's grey metal lid and overall sturdy construction give it a more professional feel. It's slightly lighter than Dell's upscale 13-inch Adamo, and the LED-backlit screen helps keep it fairly thin, although it's not in the same category as the Apple MacBook Air or Adamo.

The keyboard and touchpad are decent enough, but the rocker bar that acts as the mouse buttons is unresponsive

The large, flat keys will feel familiar to anyone who's used an Apple or Sony Vaio laptop, and typing feels comfortable and natural. The touchpad is smaller than you'd find on a MacBook, but still usable. We aren't crazy about the single rocker bar that acts as the left and right mouse buttons, though. Besides simply preferring separate mouse buttons, it's stiff and unresponsive -- you have to make sure to give it a solid press for it to register your input. The touchpad understands a few multitouch gestures, such as pinching to zoom in on a photo, which is useful, but the implementation is nowhere near as seamless as that which you'd find on a MacBook.

Above the keyboard, a small row of touch-sensitive quick-launch buttons control the Wi-Fi antenna, a built-in back-up program, and a power-saving preset.

The 13.3-inch, widescreen, LED-backlit display offers a 1,366x768-pixel native resolution, which is standard for a 16:9 screen of this size. More common are 16:10 displays at a 1,280x800-pixel resolution. Text and icons are highly readable, and the glossy screen isn't as susceptible to glare as most.

Carrying the slim and lightweight 3810T around won't pose too many problems

The two big things you'll find missing on the 3810T are an optical drive and Bluetooth connectivity. We're perfectly happy to skip the DVD burner, but Bluetooth is very handy for tethering a 3G smart phone or for connecting a travel mouse.

Performance
Intel's single-core SU-series CPUs have been generally lacklustre performers, but the dual-core Core 2 Duo SU9400 in the 3810T provides a much more usable overall experience. It easily out-performed the single-core MSI X340, and it feels perfectly capable of performing standard tasks smoothly, such as Web surfing, working on office documents and media playback. Of course, adding 4GB of RAM also helps -- both the X340 and Adamo have only half that.

The 3810T's main selling point is its battery life, and, while we didn't get the claimed 8 hours, we were still very impressed. The 3810T ran for 5 hours and 29 minutes in our video-playback battery-drain test. That test is particularly intense, so you can expect longer life with casual Web surfing and office use.

Conclusion
The Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T managed to impress us with its 5-hour-plus battery life in our rigorous test. Add in the decent industrial design, light weight and reasonable (at least compared with other slim 12- and 13-inch laptops) performance, and it all adds up to a compelling 13-inch alternative.

Note that Apple's basic 13-inch MacBook offers similar battery life for around only £70 more, and also includes an optical drive. That system weighs more, however, and has less RAM and a smaller hard drive.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet