Acer Aspire 3820T

The display is pretty good, the biggest drawback is the super glossy finish. I haven't tried using it outside, but knowing how poorly my glossy screened Acer 5920 performs outdoors, I'm not expecting miracles.

Not a huge fan of the mouse pad either, especially the right button. Finally, the speakers as expected are anemic. Other than that, the keyboard feels good (just need to get used to a slightly tighter keyboard), case feels excellent, a little bit of flex on the screen but nothing alarming.

 

Thanks. This is what I needed to hear. As for the glossiness-well, I've kind of learnt to live with that.

 

What the heck, just ordered the Momentus XT Hybrid drive from Newegg.ca. This way I won't have to do an install of Windows twice.

Wonder if I can easily sell the existing drive. Hmmm ...

Curious, do people find it "best" to setup a seperate partition for the Windows OS on their drives and if so, how much do they set aside?

 

Sorry, I have no idea about that.

 

Does anyone one know if the 3820t that you can buy on amazon has a external optical drive included? The amazon site keeps changing the information.

Yesterday it did, today the info is totally messed up.

 

I don't think it has the external drive at that price. Man, that is one ugly battery.

Bronsky

 

What's an ugly battery?

Surprised that same laptop (minus bluetooth) can be had in Canada for $649. Odd, unless it does come with an external drive (given typically laptops go for $100 to $150 cheaper in the US).

BTW, surprised at how badly the brushed aluminum lid attracts finger prints! Was hoping that the brushed aluminum wouldn't be as bad as it is.

 

Wow, my Momentus XT just came in (thought I shipped it to my house, so weird that it came to my work!). So I guess I'll have to figure out how to backup the existing OS to DVDs before doing a clean install.

Anyone know if Acer has all of the latest drivers up for the 3820 yet? For some reason when I click on that laptop I get a blank screen. Not sure if that's just my browser or what.

 

Well, made my OS Recovery and Driver and Application backup/restore DVD's and am prepping my USB drive for an ISO Windows 7 install.

Need to figure out how to partition the new drive before I do anything (reading up on GParted, though I recall when I partitioned the drive on my old 5920 not needing any external software??).

Curious, what are people getting as battery life on these units. I'm at around 4 to 5 hours, which feels light. With screen brightness set way down. Are there other settings I should be considering?

 

Same here regarding battery life, 4-5 hours on tops, with 30% brightness, and browsing (usually navigate to another page in every 2-5 minutes) + streaming, others say they get like 6-7 hours with the 6 cell, strange.

Awaiting Your experience about the Momentus XT.

 

So I pulled the $10 bluetooth dongle from my USB slot, and went from 3:50 minutes (at 75%) to 4:50 minutes at 75%. Wow that dongle was draining battery life.

On another note, I have installed Windows 7 on the Momentus, things seem way fast now (startup is maybe 15 seconds max for instance). Haven't yet partitioned as I figured I'd download all drivers, etc. then do it.

Odd question, but how do I use the driver disk that I made? Do I need to load Acer Recovery Management tool into the system?

The Acer site isn't overly helpful, i.e., the only drivers listed are:

Chipset - Intel (I downloaded this and ran it)
3G - Ericsson, Huawei, Qualcomm (ignored these?)
AHCI - Intel SATA AHCI driver (installed this but wasn't sure)
AMT - Intel iAMT Driver (installed this but wasn't sure)
Audio - Realtek (installed)

But no other drivers. In the Application section they had the ePower tool (installed it) and then 3 webcam applications (Chicony, liteon, Suyin) ... wasn't sure which to install?

Lastly, some Dritek Launch Manager application?

 

Oh, just as an aside the hard drive my 3820T came with was the WD Scorpio Blue. I found removing the "lid" where the RAM and hard drive was under was a bit of a pain, clips on in a way that feels like you could break it when removing it or putting it back.

 

hey pbc,

I suggest uninstalling the ePower tool from the website and use the one in the recovery disk. I had problems with the version on the site (it crashes when i plug/unplug). You can access it by My computer, right click -> open. There should be folders in the disk (APP and DRIVER) where you can find the executables. ePower was under APP and Launch manager was under DRIVER

I installed Chicony application for my webcam because when I checked add/remove program on the old drive, the developer for the webcam program was chicony.

 

Thanks, ended up reinstalling the drivers from the recovery disc, everything appears to be working.

Curious, when people hit the "P" button in the top left corner on their laptops, does it simply run a "launch manager"? Or does it do anything else?

 

I got a 3820t from Amazon... why can't i find the Bluetooth settings? It looks like a driver is missing. Anyone know where i can find and get this bluetooth working?

 

On my keyboard it is "Fn + F3" (my model is 4820TG).

 

Use Fn+F3 to activate BT

 

@just a Nick

Thank you!!! that was it.

 

Curious, what enables/disables wifi then on your unit? On mine it's FN + F3 (I don't have bluetooth but was eventually going to look for some aftermarket bluetooth adaptors that sometimes show up)?

 

Fn+F3 shows a menue where you can select the status of Wifi, BT and 3G. But the options are only showed, if they are available.

 

Does anyone know how I can get my hands on a 3820tg or 4820tg in the US? What are my options?

 

Seems some are importing them from Germany and other websites...check the 3820TG thread if you haven't already ..

 

Answer here ... http://forum.notebookreview.com/6424307-post1039.html. Try not to multiple post if you can ... it gets confusing.

Bronsky

 

Well, have been playing around with my system using this ....

My Computer and Windows 7 Optimization Guide: Reduce Windows 7 Boot Time and Shut Down

.... and checking the restart time using this program ....

See What Your Windows 7 Restart Time is. - dslreports.com

I'm down to 36 seconds.

Pretty sweet. Haven't disabled any of the startup services yet either, though I've done a clean reinstall of Windows 7.

 

Oh, and that time includes the fact that I have to input a long password to login ...

 

For those that have picked up one of these, i'm looking at the i3 3820t that's on amazon. Can anyone comment as to the build quality of these? Ive never owned an acer, but remember that at one point they used to have a rep for being more cheaply made. Is that improved? Coming from having HP's the last couple times with poor results.. love the specs, but hesitant since i can't go take a look at it in person since its not available at any retail stores.

 

3820TGs are available in Staples in Canada with the HD5470 GPU. 4820TGs are available at Microcenter stores in the US. You can see them there.

 

@alarson83

I bought my 3810 TZ in Sept.`09 after many weeks of looking at every laptop I could find in the price range I was looking for.The only brands that I looked at that were clearly better quality were Sony Z and HP Envy.At more than twice the price of the Acer I would hope so!

I looked at the 3820 TG at my local Staples last week and I`d say it looks even better than what I bought almost a year ago now.It looks like the 3820 TG is the price performance leader bar none.

As for the overall quality of the build, you won`t find better for the money,in my opinion!

 

Thanks! I pulled the trigger on it and got it today.

 

Only one issue I seem to be having- The internet speed seems to be painfully slow. <2mbps when i run tests on speedtest.net, often under 1mbps. Anything that could be causing this? It appears ive got the broadcom wifi in there.

 

Try taking an ethernet cable directly into your unit from the router if you can and measure the speed first. Then you can diagnose it.

 

Wired works fine for this time of day, about 10mbit, which is also just about what my other laptop gets on wireless.

 

The broadcom works fine, I get a downstream of 12 MByte without problems.

 

Hmm.. weird. I may have to try using it on some friends wireless networks as well, make sure it isnt an issue between the adapter and my particular access point (dlink dir-655). Know its not just a wireless issue with the AP itself as its working just fine with one of my existing laptops.

 

hm.. have tried it on other networks and the fastest reading i have gotten from it was 5mbit. And sometimes, when i bring it out of sleep mode after its gone for awhile, the wireless adapter has completely disappeared, not in the device manager or anything, and i have to reboot to be able to use wifi again.

 

after calling acer support, and trying to get some solutions, all i got was 3 separate people trying to kick me off to paid support. Because 'if you can see networks, it is not a hardware problem'... yeah, like if you bought a car and it would only go 10mph, something isnt wrong with the car?

 

Just give it back and buy a new one by the next shop.

If the wireless adapter disappeared, the system is not okay.

 

yeah, thats what i think im gonna do.

 

I feel a big vibration of fan under my left hand. Do you feel so?

 

I have been using mine, but I have never experienced this.

 

Could someone please take a real life measurement of the combined weight of their 3820T and the ac adapter?

Thanks a lot.

 

OMG! Thank you.
I know it's a little late, but I was about to buy the 3820T for a little less than what was advertised at staples, but the one at staples has a much better config. Time to find coupons

 

The P button also acts as a toggle to switch from ATI graphics to Intel HD graphics for power saving. By default, the P LED indicator will be ON when the notebook is on battery power.

 

Mine is coming today I am so exited.

 

Can anybody tell me if the 3820T has dual fans like the 3820TG?

 

Only 1 fan, since the other fan is meant for the ATi chip...

 

I've never owned a MacBook or any Apple product (and probably never will). So, I can't compare the keyboards. I can only say that I'm not a big fan of these "chiclet" style keyboards. If only you could get a Thinkpad keyboard on one of these... (they really are the best keyboards for extended, all-finger typing). But this one is okay. It works fine and I haven't had any problems with it. At least I have dedicated home, end and page-up/-down keys, which is nice.

I was disappointed in the stock HDD. I replaced it with an SSD (Corsair Nova 128GB) and did a clean install of Windows 7 x64. It really flies now.

Having owned laptops with i5, i7 and now i3 CPUs.... I can say there isn't much difference between the full-power ones. The difference comes with the ultra-low voltage CPUs. They are much weaker. I had an 1830T with the i5-430UM and it wasn't nearly as peppy as this i3-370M (full power CPU).

I can run more games with the 3820T than I could with the 1830T. The Intel HD is OC'd by the CPU in the full-power CPUs but I don't think they are in the low and ultra-low voltage ones.

Another pleasant factor going to the 13.3" screen (the 1830T was 11.6") is that I no longer have to press CTRL-+ to enlarge web pages to make them readable. This size is just right for my (older) eyes and still very portable.

As for the fan... I can't say as I've ever noticed it at all. But I can tell you that the temps are good, even when gaming. The power of the Intel HD GPU is directly influenced by the CPU you have. It's all good in this machine. I can play HL2 in high detail at around 75fps. Not bad for integrated graphics. It does get a bit warm when playing but not alarmingly so.

 

Your dealer is feeding you a line. My 4820TG (same keyboard) the keys work no matter where you push them. Demand a replacement of your new but not quite working computer.

 

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