Acer Aspire 1410 and 1810T Timeline (single core) 11.6" Thread

J&R, contrary to what they are telling others, are still telling me that they have no idea where their 1410's are. So, I don't know. Amazon will charge me tax, which is why I didn't get it from them - save $110 by going with J&R, but still ticked that they have absolutely no clue as to when they'll ship.

I might have to seriously consider getting it from Buy.com, we'll see.

 

Anybody have an idea of if/when these will be available in stores? I just have this aversion to buying things online, I'm just paranoid if something goes wrong, I'll have to get rid of this fear.

Also, I have heard the battery life of the smaller battery is 6 hours, and the larger battery is 8 hours. Are manufacturers still quoting the battery life if you let the PC sit idle, or are those figures with more realistic usage?

 

They're quite realistic with Acer's latest products. Light websurfing without flash, wifi on, dimmed screen.

 

I am a bit confused about the performance expectations. Battery life seems not to be an issue, but is the performance of a dual core that much better? Or worse given the 100MHz lower frequency? I understand that these processors has barely been presented yet so a proper benchmark is not done yet. But from your experiance with similar configurations, what can one expect? And which model is the best to go for?

Btw, does the dual core platform switch between single or dual core depending on load?

 

Roughly speaking it's something like this (PassMark CPU)
SU3500 - 500
SU2300 - 700
SU4100 - 800
SU9400 - 900

But SU3500 will beat SU2300 in single threaded applications.

 

Oh! Thanks!

Thanks, Phil! So it's a PCIe half-mini card... Interesting... Sad the other spot for the other miniPCIe isn't socketed/wired up

Cheers,
Kermee

 

Yeah, they're going to release 3G models too, using the second spot for the 3G modem.

 

BTW, I called today wanting to cancel my order and the CS why asked me if I can wait a little while longer.
I said no cause other places have them out.
She asked who ? I said Buy.com, Amazon.
She told me if I can hold on a little longer she can lower the price for me to $429.
I then said sure as I'm in no hurry to get this.
That will make it $376 for me with the cash back.
I'll hold out another week or so before I go to Buy.com

 

Yeap. Except, I'll hold out another two days. Maybe. Then its Buy.com all the way, since they have them in stock.

 

I just called them too and got 20 dollars refund. they said it'll be in by the end of this week. Is it more worth it to get 2 days shipping or 20 dollars refund?

 

Considering there's a weekend in between, I'd say $20 refund. Who are you guys all talking to? The person I called this morning just said "no, we don't have them. no, we don't know when we're going to get them. also, I'm not aware that there are any colours than diamond black [until i looked up and gave him product numbers for the other two colours to see if they were in stock]. i'm not aware of anyone else having it in stock either..."

 

Be careful, I don't think Bing cashback qualifies if you get your retail price discounted to $429.

 

Hey guys. That's me. Didn't know about these forums, but nice to have found a live and kicking 1810T thread.

The noise levels will be very acceptable with a working fan speed tool. My 1810T's default temp is between 44-49 degrees celcius and the default fan speed is 30%-40% (estimate) 90% of the time. This noise is too loud in my opinion and it bothers me. 10% of the time the 1810T will drop down fan speed for about a minute (Rough guess is this would be around 20%) and this noise level is very acceptable.

I don't know what a healthy operating temperature is for this notebook (or notebooks in general), but in comparison with my previous AA1 A150 (8.9"), which operated at 55 degrees idle and 70 degrees celcius at moderate to heavy CPU usage, I think the 1810T has more than enough manoeuvering space for fan speed utilties to work with and greatly reduce noise.

Mali pointed me to the SmartFan utility and explained me how to try different hex keys with the fanmodes.exe tool.
I've been trying keys for about 2 hours now and I'm only about 20% done (hex key 0x28), so this is a pretty tedious task. It's also pretty annoying since the results aren't that consistent and some keys display diffent behaviour in different situations.

If somebody else is planning to do some hex-key grinding themselves, start at the bottom please (0xFF), so we could share results and save some effort. If you are going to; SAVE your data frequently since numerous hexkeys will crash the application.

These are the keys I found till 0x28. Results aren't consistent for all keys though.
0x01 = 6% - 15% (noticed odd behavior)
0x05 = -55% - -45% (strange values are minus)
0x06 = 9% - 15%
0x09 = 41% - 30%
0x17 = 30% - 24%
0x18 = 30% - 24% (stops fan first and speeds up again)
0x1E = -53% - -44% (strange values are minus)
0x1F = 21% - 15%
0x20 = 31% - 26%

Following hex values stop the fan:
0x0E, 0x0F, 0x10, 0x12, 0x13, 0x14, 0x15, 0x19, 0x1A, 0x1B, 0x1C, 0x1D, 0x21, 0x22, 0x23, 0x24, 0x25, 0x27

 

Thanks Rastor

 

@Cusem
Nice to see you here
Don't pay attention to what fan speed percentage Smartfan reports, that is mostly nonsense. You have to distinguish different speeds by listening to the sound it makes and try to sort them in the right order. If one setting sounds similar to an other, try the other setting again to see which is faster or slower and write down the results.

Only write down values that give a constant speed. Settings with automatic increasing or decreasing speed are not so interesting.

So at the end you should have a list of values in the right order from very slow to very fast.

Don't base your list on the percentage Smartfan reports.

Edit:So every setting that does something unexpected is useless, if the fan goes off first and then spins up again -like you wrote above- it's useless, too.

Also to prevent shutting down due to fan failure, set a known working value from time to time. If you set a row of values that don't work for a certain time, the 1810t will think that the fan doesn't work at all and will shut down. So checking two new values and setting a known working then before proceeding the next two would be good to prevent shutdown.

Edit:
Another important thing to know: After flashing an other BIOS version the settings might change.

 

Good to see a lengthy thread about the Acer Aspire 1410/1810T. Ordered my blue 1410 from Amazon today and they say I'll have it tomorrow (not holding breath). At least from my experience it looks like Amazon has them in stock and ready to ship.

Not sure if I can do any type of definitive review, however I'll post my first impressions as soon as I can. Might try to post some pics as well if anyone's interested.

 

@cusem:

Thanks in Advance for your work !

Just to understand what you are doing and since i don't know the software:

The idea is to use the software of the AA1-Forum (i stumbled over a thread) to control the fan. Since you don't know the hex-values for specific fan-speeds you are manually trying every value from 0x00 to 0xFF to write a config-file for the fanspeed of the 1810T/1410. Once you have that you can use to software to set specific speeds at different Temperatures - leading to a silent 1810t -right ?

So you have already proven that the software works with the 1810t and one can get full controll over the fanspeed ?

Is there some kind of documentation for the software ?

Does it work with Win7 ?

Tobi

 

Hmm.. I'm not Cusem but I'm online right now and talk too much anyway.
So, afaik this is in Win7, see this thread:
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=17054

When every value is found, Smartfan can be configured to set a certain fan speed at a certain temperature with a certain threshold. I haven't found a documentation, the program is made by a Russian and the board where the software is discussed is Russian too.

I'm familiar with the program so I can answer questions if necessary

Edit:
This is the post the author of SmartFan made in the Aspire One forum:
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=97800#p97800

 

as der_mali said! (Win7 and that's what I'm trying to figure out)

I'm at 0x80 right now. No new values and from 0x62 on or so fanmodes.exe crashes EVERY time. Annoying thing is that if I try to run it again, it doesn't work until I reboot.

So I've rebooted about 18 times last half hour (sometimes the battery has to be disconnected to be able to boot again).

@der_mali: That's actually pretty concerning that values may change with BIOS updates! Keeping in mind that I'm not even on the newest BIOS at this point, which is 3113 I believe (I think I'm on 3108). Anybody know a feature list of 3113? Asus provides fixes/changes info, but couldn't find this on the Acer Update site.

Another crazy sidenote
I ordered a Acer neoprene sleeve a few days ago which arrived today. Pretty quick service by Acer. I anticipated a long wait, figuring a large company like Acer which core isn't retail would take a long time to ship the product, but they shipped darn fast!
Now the crazy part. The 11,6" neoprene cover was in a box that was about 80cmx80cmx50cm. Really a huge box. My girlfriend (who accepted the package) texted me I had received an empty box by mail. They could have fitted the cover in a manila envelope I guess.
The sleeve is OK. Nothing fancy. Fits well. Small sloth/sachet for 2 SD cards and 2 thumbdrives. Kinda expensive (30 euro's including shipping).

 

I haven't seen a BIOS changelog, either.

One thing you could also do to find values is just to check what Fanmodes.exe displays without altering settings yourself and instead try to check when the device is running at different temperatures for example when the device has been on for a while or when it is started after it has been off for a while and CPU is cool.

 

Has anyone tried to evaluate the quality control and opened up this notebook? Maybe the fan is loud because of improper thermal grease application. I hope Acer didn't pull a Lenovo and affix a sticker on the processor.

Edit: Wow i just realized this is my first post!

 

They gave me the same offer but refused to update the price in my account or send it an email

 

FWIW, J&R shows stock of the Ruby Red 1410. link

Cashback on netbooks seems to be 14% also.

 

Good thing I waited then.
I ordered the RED so it should be shipped out tommorow.
And I got the $20 credit too.

 

Are you guys using SmartFan or SpeedFan? I googled SmartFan but can't find anything.

Installed SpeedFan on my old Acer and it still doesnt support my laptop!

 

SpeedFan doesn't work for us... here is Smart Fan.

I've tried this tool on my Aspire One D250... and have some ideas on how to improve this (using a PID loop and some "smarts" to help with hysteresis issues). The whole guess and check setting of values is risky and error prone... it really needs more automation.

Is the source code to this app available? I don't speak Russian, but would love to inject some EE polish to my Acer systems.

 

OT I know... but Logitech recently released a new notebook mouse using darkfield optics (so it works on glass!). Should be a nice companion to the 1410.

 

I thought about writing a script that automatically would check the hex values (which is pretty simple), however the crashing of the application makes it somewhat harder. Would still be possible but would take much more time because of crash detection / auto reboot / auto start at system startup after crash reboot etc. etc.
So at this point I think I'm quicker off by manually trying hex values.

I got a VX Nano for christmas last year and a nice mouse does make quite a difference!

 

Yep the days of the current 1410/1810 and the rest of the Timeline is nearing an end, Intel has officially announced some cool upgrades, well that is if you have not just bought a device http://gizmodo.com/5345017/intel-next+gen-mobile-platforms-make-windows-7-launch-an-awesome-time-to-buy-a-laptop. So bang goes all these hopes of the 1810TZ coming with a su1400 in 4 weeks ... irrespective of which retailer or Chinese site has it listed, Not even Acer will launch a deice just to renew it 1 month later..... or ?

 

@gmontem
The CPU temp is very low so the thermal pad is not an issue. Also as Phil says, it's is not that loud. Its just that people who had some kind of fan controlling on a previous device like the luxury to have a dead silent PC

@lepton
I think automation of searching right values wouldn't work because many settings are right but pointless. This procedure has only to be made once and the profile can be used by all with the same BIOS version.

@Nobackup
This is exactly as expected. If a retailer writes Windows 7 in the specifications it can't be released before 22nd of October. So our speculating saved us from pulling the trigger too early
Edit: To elaborate further, it was an accident to put that su4100 spec in the 1810t section in my opinion. Lucky that someone has seen it. Also the term 1810TZ is from a Chinese forum and wasn't on any site. Maybe someone in the know posted it there. I don't speak or read Chinese.
So if it wasn't legit, someone on the other side of the globe would have to read the info on the Chinese board, cook up a nice SKU combo and inject it in several webshops across Europe. On a conspiracy scale it would be a few notches behind 'the King is alive' or something.
Also that rumor creator would have to have known about that su4100 processor before Intel announced it

 

Hi,

I've just registered here after finding this forum thread in Google.

I'm thinking about buying this new Acer 1810T notebook, because there are very few machines that combines this form factor with 2,5" HDD, LED backlight and reasonable price. But now I'm not really interested in keeping up with the industry any more, so I would like to buy a durable device that can keep going for four-five years with little or no abuse. Most business class notebooks can do this easily, but I'm worried about these consumer oriented ones.

Do you think that it makes sense to buy this notebook if long-term durability is important, and I do not intend to replace it after one or two years? Maybe the technology is so refined today that even entry-level products are reasonably reliable... I'm not sure.

 

Baratgab, what kind of notebook quality are you used to?

If it can handle 4 yours will totally depend on the way you treat it.

 

@Baratgab
From a perspective of environment protection it might be better to buy a more solid and expensive device. If a more solid device is two to three times the price it has to stay in good shape two to three times as long as the cheap less durable device.

I've bought a brand new Aspire One for 179€ and I must say, that the quality is better than expected.

The best device I bought was a 15.4" MSI Megabook made completely out of Metal, it still looks like new, except the keyboard.

Personally I've decided to go with cheaper devices and replace them more often. The 1410/1810t is quite good quality for a cheap device. But I seriously doubt it will last five years.

 

Well, I had only one notebook, a 14" HP nc6400 (previously I used desktops). I used it for more than two years, as my main computer (partly for work; I'm a translator), and my only problem (besides the normal battery aging) was that the CCFL backlight got quite dim. Okay, the speakers were also weak, and the heatsink could have been larger to reduce fan activity... but these are not critical problems. The chassis was in perfect condition, and the functionality remained the same.

Some months ago I replaced this machine with a Lenovo S10e netbook (because at that time it seemed that I will move to another country permanently, where I won't work on my computer, and portability will be much more important; but I returned afterwards). The build quality of the Lenovo S10e seems fine to me, though, not counting some very minor problems; this impression is the reason that now I'm considering a consumer notebook as my next long-term machine.

(I don't want more than one computer at the same time, so the Acer 1810T would be my main and only machine. This is why reliability is important.)

 

Overall the build quality is fine. My only concern would be the keyboard. Not that there's anything wrong with it but I don't know if it will survive 4-5 years of intensive use.

 

@Baratgrab
As a translator I would seriously check the keyboard before buying. It seems to be made more for stylish looks than functionality. Check what Cusem wrote in the Aspire One forum. Some people find it ok some people hate it, it seems.

 

Your URL was right, but not the link.
Quick fix here.
Interesting article!!!
_______________________________
While I'm here, I'd vote for the Lenovo /IBM Thinkpads as fine durable machines. Expensive they are, but access to employee-pricing encouraged my overindulgence.

Send me money, and I'll become the proud owner of a Lenovo EliteThinkPad X301. Employee priced at $1,989. Sigh!
13.3 WXGA+ 1440x900. Its got the SU9600, so maybe I'd wait for the new CPU and a 250GB SSD since they are now within reach.

Or maybe I'll just try to be happy with a nice little 1810TX.

 

Has anyone got any clue about this becoming available in the UK

Iwould want a UK style keyboard so don't fancy ordering from abroad...

Given the price differential between the an atom based netbook after I spec it up with the nicer screen, draft n wireless etc and one of these I may as well get the 1810T and get even better battery life and faster CPU/more meory for about the same.

I need this however before I go away on holiday (29th September) so timing is unfortunately key and I'm a month before windows 7 (when I assume several CULV models will come out from other vendors).

Only other option is the dell inspiron 11z which apparently is now available from carphone warehouse (I'm going to pop down there today) but it's a shame the CPU/Battery aren't up to the same standards as the 1810T (let alone the 1810TZ)

If anyone knows of any other competitors that might become available before then I'm all ears...

 

msi wind u210...

 

Ahem...
If you don't need more than 3h of battery life, that is

 

The Wind U200 / 210 doesn't seem very competitive in price sofar. I do like the extra 0.4" screen size (assuming it is true).

 

but they say its 5hrs... http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U210-008US-12-1-Inch-Black-Netbook/dp/B002LZUHNW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1251292743&sr=8-2

 

its cheaper than as1410
check this out
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-U210-008US-12-1-Inch-Black-Netbook/dp/B002LZUHNW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1251292743&sr=8-2

 

True, when you compare an AMD model to an Intel model it looks competitive. But the AMD is weaker and uses more power.

I'm talking about Intel vs. Intel model, here in Europe the MSI is more expensive, while it uses a lesser CPU: Celeron 723.

 

Athlon Neo is crap. It's slow and has a TDP of 15W.
5h depending on usage, that translates to "if you turn it on and don't touch it till it's empty"

 

yeah totally agree..lol

 

I think I'd rather pay the extra $20 for the better processor and battery life and slightly smaller form factor.

 

I just opened the box of my new 1810T I'll post pictures later this evening
Let me know if you'd like any special angles, close ups.

 

Huh, maybe I should just wait for the Windows 7 launch then....I dunno though, we'll see. J&R still hasn't sent my 1410.

 

If you have any other notebooks, especially any netbooks, I'd like to see side-by-side pictures between your new 1810T and them.