Acer Aspire Timeline Owner's Lounge

You may like to mod your Timeline with a Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator.

 

Not sure if it would help. Timeline has a 4500mhd, which is enough for HD video decoding, so it is not properly a matter of lack of hardware.

The question is how to offload flash video decoding to the GPU. I guess we will have to wait for adobe to implement dxa.

 

Flash will be getting an update at the end of the year that allows it to offload to the broadcom accelerator. Otherwise Adobe has yet to announce if they will be adding gpu acceleration in flash so for Timeline users with an empty PCI-E slot the broadcom accelerator will be a great solution. Also the X4500HD has problems with 1080p video already so the accelerator will help with that as well.

 

What problems with 1080p does th X4500 have?

 

If you have a Timeline with the SU2700 or SU3500 and X4500 the machine cannot do 1080p smoothly.

 

is anybody else's mouse like this at all?

 

anyone? anyone? bueller? anyone?

 

Sounds like a faulty button mechanism / switch to me? Mine only clicks once, there is certainly not 2 clicks to it :/

 

http://www.hardware.nl/p/acer/LX.PE10X.197

I found this while searching for the timeline with ATI graphics. 639 Euro works out to around 920 dollars. Computer prices in Europe don't usually follow the exchange rate from what I've heard. Would you expect it to be less expensive in the US?

If an SU9400 is strong enough to do flash HD and 1080p (with or w/o the help of the 4330), then I'm sold.

 

It's 760 EUR (with VAT) so unless You know procedure how to get VAT return, You'll pay that much

 

Ok, but what I was asking was: Based on the price on that website, what do you think it will cost in the US?

 

Hi everyone!

I'm interested in purchasing the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T mainly because of its small size, low weight, and long battery life. Right now, I'm debating between the SU3500 + 320 GB HDD for $599 vs. the SU9400 + 80 GB SSD for $799. I'll be using this laptop at college to take notes in lecture classes, as well as to use the internet and word processing in the library. I'm wondering, will the SU3500 be able to run Firefox with multiple tabs, Microsoft Office software, and Yahoo! Messenger all at the same time, comfortably? Or is that the kind of multitasking for which the duo core SU9400 would perform better? Is the faster CPU and SSD worth the extra $200? (I intend to try to use this laptop for as many years as possible.)

 

If you don't want to spend that much money, then I'll go with the $600 model, the CPU is fast enough. But if you are wanting to try out a SSD and want a faster CPU, then pay the extra $200.

 

I say, if you want to get extra life out of your laptop, buy the dual core version. The SSD probably won't make a difference for you, but you'll like it if you find yourself pressed for time booting up your laptop. I don't think anyone's ever in that much of a hurry.

 

I need an extra ac adapter, and I'm not sure where to buy. I couldn't even find one in the Acer website, while in J&R there is a Kensington one for $50 which is way too much IMHO. Anyone knows of a reliable place to get one? (I'm in the US by the way).

 

You might as well go with a Universal power supply, which is mostly you can find is Kensington.. but If you can find the Acer one.. I'll say go for it. I don't see Acer selling the power supply by itself though.

 

The Kensington is the one costing $50 in J&R. I still wonder how much an original would cost though, maybe even less?

 

original product would most likely cost from $60-$120. I know HP cost around $80 at Best Buy for the AC Power Supply. But Acer don't even sell it. They only come with PC. You can look on eBay.

 

im actually in the same dillema... but now im guessing its better to get the su3500 one... and buy an external usb dvd and a 3g/gps minipcie card... its cheaper!!

 

Here is the link to the US Acer store. I believe the timelines ship with this 65 w adapter.

http://store.acer.com/product.asp?pf_id=11141708

I personally plan to use an IGO everywhere85 with tip 114 for my timeline it will work at home/plane/car. Its on sale for $59 and the tip is another $10.

http://www.igo.com/detail/IGO+PS00120-0005

 

Dual core > extra life ? !

 

Longer life as in the usability down the road. A dual core is more future proof, it will allow you to potentially do more than the single core.

Also, I finally got Bios 1.10 for 3810's to work, and my virtualization is still enabled.

 

I am also debating between these two. I don't mind having a HDD over a SSD, but my debate is more between the processors SU3500 and SU9400. I only plan on using it for internet, MS Office, and watching videos in divx format. We have two desktop pcs at home, so I don't need a power laptop, but it's still hard to decide.

One question I do have.......
can the SU3500 play HD videos well or are they choppy? Here are my two concerns.
1. I would most likely play 720p videos recorded with my point-and-shoot Canon Powershot camera.
2. And I definitely want to be able to play YouTube videos in HD mode smoothly.

Can the SU3500 handle this okay?
Has anyone tested this out?

According to this gaming site, the integrated graphic card on this acer: " Video playback is a key focus of the 4500MHD. It supports Intel Clear Video technology , which allows the 4500MHD to decode Blu-ray and 1080p high-definition video. "

However, I was wondering if someone out there has actually tested this on an SU3500 or an SU2700.

 

720p would run fine on su3500 with the correct codec
but youtube HD will be choppy as it depends solely on cpu.
info:

 

I have a Timeline 3810 SU3500 Intel VGA it works fine but i think that my model doesn't have a CPU cooler (there is no air flow coming out of the left side of the laptop, and speed fan didn't detect any fan)... is this normal? the CPU temperature in between 55-65 C depending on the CPU usage. Does the SU9400 model have a cpu fan or all the models are fan-less

 

My Timeline came with a different one, not even made by Acer (by LITEON). They have a website but I couldn't access the part where they say where to buy... There are some adapters on Ebay, but I'm not sure how much I'd trust those, so I may end up buying the Kensington.

 

Interesting I received by 3810T today and the power supply is made by Delta Electronics. Its a 65W looks like this one but with slightly different model numbers:

http://www.pchub.com/uph/laptop/46-16910-1697/Delta-Electronics-ADP-65DB-REV.B-AC-Power-Adapter.html

I'm guessing any of the 65W supply's with the correct tip will work fine.

 

I just installed Win7 on my 4810 (SU3500, 4500HD) & right out of the box without even installing any codecs I can play the Transformers trailer & the other 2 HD trailers linked to on page 39 of this thread with Windows Media Player showing about 10-20% cpu usage.

Even when I had Vista still on this laptop with PowerDVD 9 I could play all 3 trailers with about 10-20% cpu usage.

It's like this laptop was made for Win7. With Vista the hard drive would thrash for several minutes after the desktop loaded even though I had just a few programs starting up. With Win7 the desktop loads & a few seconds later the hard drive is idle. Playing HDTV in Windows Media Center literally takes half the cpu usage in Win7 that it did in Vista. I am so much happier with Win7.

 

Damn thats nice it must be my SU2700 that is the culprit. Also agree on the Windows 7 comment. Windows 7 is just so much superior to vista in terms of system optimization that it's not even funny.

 

Ok I just ran SuperPi 1M to test the SU2700 cpu and compare it to the atoms and SU9400 results that were posted earlier in the thread. Reason I am doing this is because some people around here are saying that the new Intel CULV CPUs are just glorified atoms.

SU3500 and SU9400 (numbers are the same because SuperPi is single threaded)
39 seconds

SU2700
44 seconds

Atom N270
94 seconds

Atom N280
91 seconds

Athlon Neo MV-40
112 seconds

Apparently from the information I found on the web AMD cpu's have always had a problem with super pi but from other reviews the performance is pretty much on par with the Atom but the AMD comes out ahead because of the GPU that is part of the platform.

So as you can see the new Intel CULV cpu's are over 2x as fast as the Atoms and rightfully so since they are based on Core 2 architecture. Even the lowly SU2700 @ 1.3GHz will smoke an Atom so to say that the Timelines are just as underpowered as netbooks is just dumb.

This also means that if Acer keeps the price of the new 1810 below $500 they will be netbook killers.

 

Once again, does anyone know how to access the recovery partition?

 

Tap F8 at the bios screen about once a second. You'll go to the safe mode menu, at the top is "Repair my pc" or something like that. Click on that. On the next screen at the bottom is the option for Acer factory image restore.

 

Maybe he wants to delete it? I did that from in Ubuntu.

 

I don't want to delete, I've had to use it one too many times. I need to scan it because I've wiped my C drive so if I had a virus it wouldn't be on there but I'm wondering if maybe there's something on the recovery partition.

Any way to access it in Windows?

 

Use the eRecovery program. Or do you mean acess the partition from Windows?

 

Access it from Windows so I can scan it.

 

So I just recently purchases the 4810T with intel core 2 duo su 9400 (im in canada btw and it was very hard to find) and I was just wondering ... there has always been that issue of if leaving your laptop plugged in to the wall even though it is already 100% charged, it ultimately decreases the life of the battery. Is this always the case and specifically, do you think this is the case with the acer timelines because I am planning to leave it plugged in all the time.

 

does everyone's screen start up at max brightness all the time when it's plugged in? is there any way to change that?

 

jroc10, I'm not sure, but I have heard about such things. If you plan to leave it into the wall for weeks at a time, I would take out the battery but probably put it back in and use it once in a while.

ienhz, I think so. I'm not sure how that can be changed, but I don't think it's a major problem at all.

 

Leaving the laptop plugged in will not affect the battery. Lithium Ion does not suffer from decreased battery life if plugged in all the time because they do not have memory unlike NiCD batteries. Just use it like you normally would without worrying about the battery. Also when these machines are turned off and charging if they have a full charge they will stop pulling power from the power supply.

 

If you're still running Vista try installing the trial offer of PowerDVD 9 Ultra. You need to go into the settings menu & under the video tab enable hardware acceleration. I bet you get similar cpu usage numbers playing those 1080p trailers on page 39 that I'm getting with the SU3500.

 

Even if it did affect the battery, don't the timelines have a feature to stop charging the battery when it's at 100%?

 

I plugged my 3810TZ into a Kill-a-Watt adapter and looked at the Watts used. When idling we use ~14W, and under load (doing a virus scan, plugging into mouse and keyboard and second monitor, plus charging) the wattage used is ~40W.
The power supply has the *really cool* feature of not drawing any power when there is no power use. i.e. it draws 0W when the laptop is not plugged in. For comparison, I read that some Macbook draws upto 85W /all the time/.

 

I think that it draws 0% when the machine is on standby or off and charging. If they machine is on it will still draw a little bit of power no matter what but not very much.

 

Thanks for the response. Good to know ahead of time that YouTube HD videos will still be choppy with the SU2700 or the SU3500. It's unfortunate, but at least I know before buying it.

I would like your guys' opinion on something.
Right now, I can get the SU2700 for $550 total (free shipping and don't have to pay taxes) or the SU3500 $680 including taxes and shipping.
All other specs on the acer are the same.

Is the SU3500 worth the extra 130 dollars?

Can I still view 720p and 1080p videos smoothly with the SU2700?

Thanks again for all the input!

 

the su3500 can be had at 549 from officedepot

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/410364/Acer-AS4810-8480-14-Widescreen-Notebook/

 

For me, at the cost of a 130 bones I would go with the SU2700 and use the other money for like a SSD or something else I might need.

As has been stated, as long as it's not flash, you'll be fine with the SU2700 and if problems use hardware accel.

 

Does anyone else notice that the display brightness sorta changes by itself on the lowest brightness and on battery? Just minimize and maximize an internet explorer window with the default timeline wallpaper and you can see it getting brighter.

Is there any way to get rid of that?

Edit: nevermind, figured it out. disable the power saving feature in the intel graphics driver program.

 

You can get a 3810T with the SU2700 for $480 shipped, no taxes. Compared to $650-$700 for the SU3500 model, that's almost 1 and 1/2 times the price, for about a 10% increase in performance. And it's still gonna be single-core.

I'd say it's not worth it.

 

GLoStiX - can you let me know where you found that price, $480 for 3810T? thx