Acer Aspire Timeline Owner's Lounge

Hi
my 2 Cents:
i tried playing 720p mpeg from my canon sd780is digicam and vlc never played it right, but zoom player did!! (only when set to use vista's EVR decoder!)

 

You should look into MPC if you're still using VLC and Zoom....

 

Hey Gus I should be getting my Timeline tomorrow or Tuesday and I've used the new MBP (unibody) so I should be able to tell you how similar they are.

Also, I agree with lowteckh that VLC isn't good for HD playback because the codecs it uses aren't very good. I suggest Media Player Classic and downloading the CCCP codec pack and you should be good to go .

 

Just picked up a 3810TZ and so far so good.

My only question right now is there anywhere to change the dedicated memory for the video processor? Right now its running at like 64-128 megs and the site I was looking at says it can 'share' up to 1700+mb .

I think adjusting this would help with video play back on hulu when outputted by hdmi to my plasma tv. I will transfer some movies from my other laptop to this machine to day to see if its just an issue with 'streaming' video and then streaming it to another display.

Anyone else have this problem? Other than that I like it so far. Its a HUGE difference than the 17" desktop replacement HP I have sitting next to me but this one it easier to carry back and forth each day to the office and SHOULD stay charged almost all day.

 

MPC is good, but zoomplayer has far more control options IMHO

 

I can confirm now that with the 4810tz the 8 hours plus battery life Is only possible with vista! Not 7 or XP.
with both OS I got a realistic 6 hours, while vista gets me around 8:30

by the way xp feels super fast with the 4810tz and all the drivers from the 3810 work on the 4810 and I used the ODD power utility from the drivers disc I created from the 4810
the only app I could not find for my xp installation was the ePower Management
which could explain why it could not match vista's 8 hours!!
on 7 all drivers and apps appear to be installed, but since there not officially intended for 7, so you never know if they're working as they're intended

 

What is the battery life like under Ubuntu? Anything close to the 8 hours? Or are we talking about a major difference?

 

Dart I think you're last sentence is right. The settings that Acer created are not meant for 7 so like if they kill certain processes or something like that for example it could be different on 7.

6 hours is still pretty good.

 

i've been looking at the 13" notebook with the su9400 processor. does anyone know of a retailer in the US that has this in stock?

 

http://www.jr.com/acer-computer/pe/ACE_AS3810T6415/

 

Gnome tells me a few minutes short of 5 hours. I've never done real-life battery testing in 7 or Ubuntu, and I don't really plan on doing it. I'm just happy that I have a notebook that outperforms my EeePC 1000H in every category (speed, battery life and (most importantly) screen resolution).

 

that's the same place i've been looking, but they don't seem to have any in stock. i'm going to travel out of the country later this month and would love to have something with me that can carry a tune for that long.

 

If you don't mind, you can try Canadian shops.
http://www.agileelectronics.ca/prod_details/tab/details.asp?prod_id=LX.PCR06.002
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=39705

 

I'm thinking about getting the 3810t. One question that I have is does anyone think that they'll have updates for Windows 7 when it comes out, updates meaning the ones for the power management software.

 

until acer says specifically they will, it's pure speculation. i would have to imagine that they would, albeit probably not on the day that 7 hits. after vista was released, eventually most people released drivers, etc. but it took a little while.

from reading through all the posts, everything seems to work with the RC's, although battery life leaves something to be desired. i suppose what really remains to be seen is how 7 will perform battery-wise when using a final build vs. one of the RC's.

 

Okay thanks. I was thinking pretty much the same thing. Hopefully Windows 7 (Final build) will have some kind of power management software that will help it get better battery life even without the Acer power management software. It should be fine though, this isn't going to stop me from wanting/getting this notebook.

 

In my opinion it's safe to assume that when Windows 7 is ready it will offer at least as good battery life as Vista on the 3810T. Installing Acer software/drivers may be necessary to achieve that.

 

Sayin' whaaat? My battery life is great, even without the imho useless Acer power management tool.

 

i suppose that should have been in context. most people don't seem to be getting as much in windows 7 as they do in vista, but it's still a farily good # (5-6 if i recall).

that's what i've gathered from posts though. if you've got better information through actual usage, you're more knowledgable that i am.

 

Yes, share it with us, Tocharius.

 

On 10-20% brightness, 8 hours of wireless use are possible.

I think the acer tool does nothing windows 7 can't do. My power settings are as follows...

Turn HDD of: never (got an SSD anyway)
Wireless adapter: Always max performance
USB selective suspend: enabled
PCIe something: moderate saving
Sys cooling policy: passive (dead quiet, aaaw yeah!)

Overall, I'm still smitten with my system. It's the perfect combination of power and mobility. Mp3 encoding is of course not as fast as on my old T7500, but it still beats every single core out there.

@evilid: You have a 3935? That was a close second when deciding which notebook to buy. The 3810T won because of the price and the battery life, but I think yours is still a petty sweet machine. How do you like it?

 

That is an impressive machine, Tocharius.

Yes, I bought Aspire 3935 a week ago.
I started a thread to give people a detaile review on it.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=390929

I am satisfied with it so far.
All metal case chassis gives me a kind of satisfaction that I could not get with plastic machines I had before.
I also had to struggle a lot between 3810T and 3935 and I can tell you that it was an extremely tough decision to make.
I chose 3935 for 1. a fully featured laptop 2. Design 3. decent battery for a 4-cell 4. Price (US$ 829).

If anyone wants to know more about 3935, go to the above link since I do not want to hijack this thread.

 

The 3935 has no HDMI out, that's a deal breaker for me. Never trust a price comparison site. My usual source quotes the 3935 with HDMI, and my 3810T with bluetooth, and both come without the respective features.

Good to know that you're happy with your new notebook. Everyone gets what they want. But I would get an SSD, asap. Samsung PB22-J is cheap at the moment...

 

I knew 3935 doesn't come with HDMI before purchasing.
I just don't need a HDMI port; in fact I don't own a TV (4 PC though).

Thank you for letting me know about Samsung PB22-J.
I was in deed looking for a decent SSD.
But it is too bad that it is 2.5" (3935 has a 1.8" HDD).

 

Did you run the same load for the different OS's ? The difference looks suspicious big...

 

Any version with 32 bit ?

 

Hi guys, hoping one of you can help me out.

I'm looking at an Acer Timeline 4810TZ, with the 1.3GHz Pentium SU2700.

I know this CPU is fast enough for almost anything, including playing DVDs and video files. VLC is able to handle that fine even on my 1.6GHz Atom netbook.

My netbook can't play Hulu or Netflix full screen though without stuttering. Is that possible with the SU2700? I hope so... thanks!

 

Just got my Timeline today and I can confirm that mine did come with Bluetooth. And to those looking at J&R that's where I bought mine and I think I might have snagged that last one, sorry guys. Though when they do come in stock I can say they're a great retailer to buy from. My order shipped in one business day when it estimated 3-5 days.

Hey Tocharius on the 5 key how do you get it to input the Euro sign? Do you have to have it set to a European version of English?

 

Wait, BobbyNumber, you ordered the 13" model, and it came with bluetooth?

 

Yep, my model is the 3810T-6415 which goes for 900 USD

Also the battery strip at the bottom only lights up orange on mine and not blue like I thought it was supposed. I'll have to look into it.

 

Sweet!! And here I was, fretting that I wouldn't get bt support on the 3810T (and I NEED bluetooth, hands down... though I'm not sure if I'd be willing to sacrifice a USB port for an adapter...)

So yours is the one w/ the C2D U9400 processor, right? How do you like it?

 

That it is and it's going great now. I've not noticed any slow down from going from a 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo in my old laptop. I streamed a HD clip in YouTube and it was fine although I haven't loaded any of my 1080p movies on it yet. The speakers are quiet but not bad quality like you'd think.

 

i found another review on the 3810t (with the dual core processor)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347666,00.asp

some interesting benchmarks from the review:

battery life (mobilemark 2007)
- acer 3810t: 8h 40m!!!!!!!
- acer 3935: 4h 50m
- lenovo u330: 2h 40m
- hp dv3z: 4h 09m
- msi x340: 3h 34m

windows media encoding
- acer 3810t: 1m 48s
- acer 3935: 1m 16s
- lenovo u330: 1m 16s
- hp dv3z: 1m 36s
- msi x340: 2m 02s

photoshop cs4
- acer 3810t: 48s
- acer 3935: 38s
- lenovo u330: 39s
- hp dv3z: 1m 06s
- msi x340: 1m 14s

i don't plan on doing any heavy lifting with this thing, that's what my desktop is for. even as such the numbers don't look too bad, so long as you're a little patient. battery life and small size make this a definite winner in my book. i was thinking about the msi x340 at one point, but from everything i can tell, it just can't stack up.

 

Great info here, thanks to all posters.

I am really considering the 3810T-6415. The only thing I'm not quite sure about yet is the build quality. I know it is good, but design and build quality is very important to me, and although it's good for an Acer, it's not great, or am I wrong?

Only the lid is aluminum, correct? Is the general feel very sturdy? How does it look?

Thanks!

 

No, SU2700 and SU3500 will not play Flash HD smooth.

Flash is programmed in such a way that it does not use the GPU, only the CPU. It's about time they improve flash or start using different formats.

 

Very sturdy, the lid is aluminum. Playing with an in store demo, the plastics are very solid and that goes for the entire chassis. The keyboard is a bit glossy, as well as the screen.

 

It feels very sturdy (I have that model) the keyboard is a bit glossy but it's more of a smooth finish and doesn't collect that many fingerprints or feel slippery. The actual body is plastic but there is really no flex and they keyboard doesn't have any at all being the chiclet/island style. It would have been nice for the whole thing to be aluminum but for 900 bucks this is pretty damn good. It feels sturdier than my Dell Studio 15 does.

 

Thanks all, this is getting more and more tempting.

@Tocharius: I see you recommend a new Samusng SSD, but from what I understand it is OEM only and does not retail by itself anywhere. Do you know of anywhere it is sold separately?

Also, what do you think of Corsairs new M64 64GB SSD? It seems to have decent speeds (at least enough for what the 3810 can handle), and retails for about $160-180 USD.

Thanks!

 

@SSD: At least in Austria, some online shops list the PB22-J. But it's been out of stock for a long time. I just know that it is the SSD I would get if I needed another one right now. The Corsair, Supertalent and OCZ versions of it are fine too, whatever is cheapest.
But I wouldn't touch anything with JMicron in it yet. Also, ask those questions in the SSD thread.

@3810T with Bluetooth: Good, there is one.

@3935 with 1,8": This notebook gets less interesting with every one of your posts, evilid. ;-)
PS: Intel X-18, then.

@Euro sign on the keyboard: Mine is German, so it's ALT-GR + E for me.

@LED: Blue when fully charged, orange when charging, no light on battery. Actually, this thing is a bit annoying because it's so big.

@sturdyness: Yes, it's really sturdy. When closed, it's better to carry it on the front side, because it doesn't have those little hooks to keep the display closed. So if you don't, it rattles a bit. Otherwise, it's a very solid notebook.

EDIT: @linux on the 3810T: Here's a great thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1165087

 

yes it was the same condition in both os, actually since both xp and 7 were giving roughly the same battery life
I would say this proves that this is what you get from the timeline without proper power management!!

 

No it will play flash HD smooth.
SU is a Core Architecture Processor with Single Core which is actually rather capable enough.
The onboard 4500MHD will enable playing of HD Movies.

 

I have seen several user reports that Core Solo does not play Flash HD smooth.

Source: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=388133&page=2

And 4500MHD can not enable flash. No GPU can do that.

 

I just played around a little with measuring the power intake of my notebooks.

Timeline on full brightness: 13 Watt
EeePC 1000H on full brightness: 18 Watt

Pentium M 1,8GHz (?) with Radeon X700: 34 Watt
Pentium M 1,5GHz with Radeon 9700: 21 Watt

Pentium 4 desktop with Radeon 9700: ~150 Watt

I like those numbers. The timeline is better than the netbook, or at least in the same league. How else can it run longer on a 6 cell than the Eee?

I will try again when the Vertex SSD for my Eee arrives. The netbook is currently working as my home media streaming (aka file) server. With 2 external 500GB 2,5" USB drives. All that at around 15 Watt with the screen turned of... awesome!

 

Nice, thanks for great input.

Have any of you 3810T owners found a sleeve or case for it yet? Its dimensions are very similar to the MacBook Air's, with the exception of the thickness. The Air is .76" thick and the 3810 is .9-1.1" thick. Maybe it could squeeze into an Air sleeve?

Thanks!

 

I've considered buing a sleeve, but i doubt the regular 13.3" sleeves would be a good fit. This used to be 16:10 territory, and only now 16:9 notebooks like ours start appearing. I think most sleeves are still for MacBooks (just like most mp3 player accessories are for iPods... damn fashion statements). And those continue to be 16:10.

So, if anyone can tell us of a good sleeve for the 3810T, please do.

 

32 pages of Sony Z bags and sleeves thread here.

I reckon it's very close in size to 3810T.

 

Vaio Z is 13.1" and has less bezel. I don't think a 3810T fits into on of those bags.

 

True, but Z is a lot thicker. So it may work... or not.

 

Z dimensions:
L: 8.3
W: 12.4
T: 1.0 - 1.3

3810 Dimensions:
L: 8.97
W: 12.67
T: 0.92-1.13

looks like the acer is .67" longer and 0.27" wider. probably will depend on the snugness of the case; width doesn't look like it would be that big a problem, but the extra 2/3" on the height could prove to be a problem.

 

I've been using a sleeve by SFBags/Waterfield for my netbook, and they great quality products.

If you look at the list of sizes in that link, I'm thinking that the sleeve made for the Thinkpad X300/X301 will fit the 3810 nicely. The X300 is a tad wider and a tad shorter than the 3810, but the thickness is the same, and if you get the vertical sleevecase for the X300, the 3810 will surely slide nicely into it.