Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T Thread

many thanks. do you think an i3 will have more battery endurance?
honestly, if the 1810 would have such a nice chasis, i would go with the 1810. most important for me is absolutely batterylife. which cpu model then would be best of the new 1830?
i like the idea of the i3 to get a bit boost on hd content streaming.

 

Excellent find Techie, many thanks, and thanks instantcoffe for noting the 4225 is compared against the GMA HD and Ion2, which is just what I wanted to know . I wonder if the Turion II K625 inside the 1551 might be able to result in better battery life...

...crap, with the Acer 1551, AMD/ATI's upcoming Llano platform and the Acer TM8172 I am having decision paralysis .

 

I am really thinking about getting that Acer 1551-5448. If it could hit 6-7 hours battery life, it would have been a no-brainer, however under 5 hours is a bit meh.

 

The problem with AMD is that they always get coupled with a crappy battery for some reason (to keep the prices down I guess), in this case it's a 4400mAh vs the 5800mAh on the 1830T with the Intel processor. To be fair, the 5800mAH is listed as only 6.5h on the 1551, but that's far better than the 5h that the 4400mAH "officially" gets.
Here : Acer Support - Acer Aspire 1551 Notebook Series Specifications

 

I think I'll be able to make do with under 5 hours, but I imagine that it'll be possible to buy higher capacity compatible batteries before too long. I think there's a good chance the 1830T's battery would fit, so it might be possible to just buy a replacement one of those.

Edit: ^ Ah, reading the Acer support link, it mentions a "High-capacity 63 W 5800 mAh 6-cell Li-ion battery pack". So I'll just buy one of those whenever they show up online

 

I'm pretty sure they would be compatible as some 1551 were listed with the "high-capacity" battery. You would probably be able to order one through Acer directly.

 

Hi, everyone! Just thought I'd share a discovery from my Acer 721 that might apply to others with a Synaptics touch pad. I was having trouble with the two finger scrolling--it was jumpy and hard to control. Then I turned off the Pinch to Zoom feature in the Synapics control panel, and suddenly two finger scrolling started working great. It's much, much smoother. So give that a try if you're having trouble with two finger scrolling.

 

@yus9 and other 1830t owners:

can you please check the battery endurance of the 1830? I'm quite disappointed about the results of the earlier posted test. Even if the 1810 got less performance: the difference shouldn't be this much. Would be really helpful, if somebody could give a feedback. Thanks

 

Just received by 1830t from TigerDirect.com today with cash back (after returning a perfectly good Amazon 1830t). I am very pleased with the overall form factor, build quality and performance. The portability of the laptop is just great!

Currently I've been going 1 hour, 40 minutes and I plan to run the battery down to see how long it will last. The estimated battery life remaining is about 6 hours but we'll see how long it will last. I also plan to do a loop test of some playback of an HD video or show. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm hoping to get two movies in on a coast-to-coast flight. We'll see.

I haven't noticed any problems with the mouse pad buttons. Yes, they could be a tad crisper but they don't cause me any problems.

 

I have yet to complete a full BatteryMon cycle due to updates and other complications, but as a rough estimate the machine gets 5-6 hours easy doing web and development stuff. Perhaps a better way to describe it is that I went from a Samsung N110 which has great battery life to the 1830T and I do not find it lacking. I'll be sure to post the exact BatteryMon results when I have them if no one offers an accurate answer before then.

 

Mr.Foo did you get the i3 or i5 from Tiger? What are your thoughts about the heat after a few hours of use? The review mentioned that the i5 got hot in certain areas.

 

Hi Yus...

Could you please explain better by what you meant by "1830 measures faster".....

Thanks

 

He means that in different tests, the 1830 scored higher than the 1810, but that its hardly noticeable. Rana, be happy with your 1810.

 

I got an i3 from TigerDirect. My Amazon i3 arrived on Monday but early Monday morning I had decided to return the Amazon shipment and order from TigerDirect w/ bing cashback (saves me $50). So I ordered from TigerDirect Monday morning and received it on Thursday.

Heat is a total non-issue. I watched several HD clips on hulu and youtube and the processor worked a little bit (in the 40-60% range) for several minutes and it was still very comfortable in my lap. My XPS m1330 gets way to hot from even light use so this is a real nice treat to use. When I would watch shows on my XPS m1330 (or my wife's 1330 as she reminds me) in bed I would put it on a pillow to "prop it up" and it would overheat and shut down after 20+ minutes. I don't see the 1830T i3 having this problem at all. It is a real treat to use. This also had a 5% reserve (i.e. the notebook hibernated at 5% remaining battery).

BTW, I got about 6 hours 10 minutes use. This included watching about 15 minutes of HD trailers online and general web browsing with uninstalling and installing some applications (but no reboots). Also, I tweaked the power savings mode in "High Performance" so that nothing would turn off or dim but it would still use

 

It's really strange....according to the spec sheet of intel the new ulv cpu's should only have a max power consumption of 18 Watts including GPU and memory interface. That would be even less than the consumption of the hardware built-in the previous model 1810. The battery should be also stronger in the 1830 models according to acer. But according to the 1830 owners here and the first test, you can't reach a battery runtime that is even close to the predecessor.

My 1830T arrived today. I don't really want to unpack it because of that flaw. Maybe i ll just send it back and get the 1810tz instead. Battery endurance of a subnotebook is the most important feature for me...

 

Thanks for the heads up! This is great news:

Playing World of Warcraft on the 1830T was a little better than before. With the resolution set to 1024 x 768 (and graphics at default), we saw an average rate of 30 frames per second, which dipped to 6 fps when we upped the game to the native resolution; that's roughly the same as the the category average (35/9 fps), the Eee PC 1201PN (NVIDIA Ion) (28/12 fps), and the Aspire One 721 (ATI 4225) (30/8 fps).

Glad to see it can handle some light WoW gaming. I convinced my mom to buy the Core i3 model (arrives on the 6th from Amazon), so I'll have to drive out there and see how well it works (or, plays Halo).

 

Just keep in mind that our "tests" aren't really test and don't have well documented configurations. For example, in my 6+ hour test I didn't optimize the power savings options but I could have even more. To compare against the 1810 you'll need to compare controlled tests against each other, like this one. As another example, I ran my test w/ the screen saver on and the last few hours (10pm - 1am) the screen saver was probably on which is graphic intensive.

Battery life is pretty important to me as well and so far I can't fault the 1830T. Although, I still need to do the continuous video loop test but I'm waiting to re-charge it before I can start that test. These 6-8+ hour tests take a while.

 

@mr.foo: The review of Laptopmag seemed competent to me. Of course the tests of users are not always 100% reliable. Maybe you can post some good news soon, after testing the battery endurance properly.

Cheers,

 

Any word on i5 availability in Canada? Acer's Canadian website only lists the AS1830T-3730 and AS1830TZ-4393 but neither of them have the i5 or bluetooth (the two missing requirements I have).

http://www.acer.ca/acer/productv.do...tx1g.c2att92=474&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=3885946246

 

I'll be no help comparing to an 1810. I lack an 1810. As I mentioned before I got over 6 hours (but barely). Not sure what you consider "proper" but for a fair comparison you'll want a consistent test configuration against the 1810 and 1830 (which doesn't seem too common, yet).

Although I did search laptop mag's site. They also had a test for the 1810 which fared much better (assuming it was the same test configuration). So maybe the 1830 won't match the life of the 1810. If so, maybe the 18W (max rating, remember) is the same for the 1810 and 1830 but the 1830's average power consumption is higher. Not sure why. I do wonder, however, how much the TurboBoost hurts the i5's endurance.

Any i5 owners willing to do a back-to-back test w/ TurboBoost enabled and then disabled?

It's 12 hours later is it still unpacked? Ha, your will power is stronger than mine. I've been waiting a while (Feb maybe?) and I'm glad to have one in hand for my next trip. BTW, did you order an i3 or i5 version?

 

3 hour, 10 minute continuous playback of a 1080 blu-ray (Nature's Most Amazing Events) from the hard drive. Will try playback of a standard DVD next (maybe tomorrow).

 

Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830t reviewed: You get what you pay for

 

Without a real comparison between 1810 (su7300 or su9400 only!) and this new 1830 (i5) anyone can't say which is better in terms of battery life, and I say also of pure power (su9400 rocks).

 

Anyone? It arrived yesterday.. overall i'm happy with the performance, though the touchpad is a bit off. But i woud really like to change the keyboard...

 

Bottom line:The 1810T got replaced by the 1830T which is a small step up in performance and price.
The 1410T got replaced by the 721 which is a step down in performance but not in price.The $399 1410T su2300 will be sorely missed by those in tight budgets.(Whatever happened to 752?)

 

The SU2300/752 lives in Canadian WalMarts. Hasn't surfaced anywhere else yet that I have seen. The Walmart version has a 3 cell battery I think.

Bronsky

 

Actually, the Acer 721 has double the graphics performance of the 1410T. Hardly a step down in performance for those who like to play WoW on the go! Also, the K125 in the Acer 721 is comparable to the Celeron 743 in the most recent 1410Ts. The $399 1410Ts with the dual core su2300 were a bargain, but they had been impossible to find in the last several months.

So it's really more appropriate to compare the Acer 721 to the 1410T with the Celereon 743. And in that case, it's a definite step up for graphics, a wash for processor, and a slight decrease for battery.

 

AcerInsider mentioned that the new keyboards would be available through Acer eventually. No mention if the older 1810 keyboards are compatible or not ; maybe you could be the one to find out (they cost like 5$ on ebay : Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T 1810TZ 1810 T Keyboard US BK - eBay (item 250597955823 end time Jul-14-10 00:46:55 PDT))

 

Well my will wasn't strong enough, either. I opened the package:

I got the version with i5-430um. The performance is just great for such a small subnotebook. Windows 7 and applications are starting very quick. The build quality is great - also because of the carbon look and the precise clearance between the keys and the other components. Nothing is loose or fragile. The battery performance is not as good compared to the predecessor i guess. But i was able to reach 8 hours with high brightness and wlan activated (though it wasn't connected) and very moderate usage. I was really surprised by the display. The contrast is really good including deep blacks and accurate whites. The vewing angle is also very good (at least the horizontal one). The fan is barely noticable.

After all I'm really glad i opened the small box.

 

Got a working 1551-5448 from Amazon earlier today

Haven't run any precise tests, but I've messed around with some games and watched the battery.

As expected, battery life is . I've kept it plugged in most of the time, but when it wasn't plugged in, it was draining fast.

Game performance is pretty good. On low settings TF2 is playable, if you can handle drops to 15fps during more intense action. DEFCON, Audiosurf, Torchlight, and other lower spec games ran fine.

Also going to echo naturalbornkoller. This thing looks great, and (despite my first one arriving broken ) has good build quality.

It's funny - up until six months ago, I was using a desktop that had worse specs than this little thing.

 

Has anyone managed to access the fan settings on their 1830T? I would love to try and tweak my i5 unit to be a little more like the i3 unit i tried, i.e. getting the fan to spin less erratically.

edit: Scratch that, the problem with the left mouse button came back. Looks like I'm gonna have to give up on the 1830T for now...

 

Just 5 years ago in order to get similar performance(not even that)we needed a huge tower,a large screen,a ton of tangled cables,a separate web camera,speakers,keyboard,mouse and a lot of bucks.Now we get the same thing and more from a one inch 3 pound little thing.Thank god for technology....Of course now we are complaining about half an hour less battery time(LOL).....

 

Give up?? Do you mean return it?Why don't you contact Acer support.Is it that bad(Unworkable) the left button?

 

It depends on how you use it I guess, but yeah tightening the screws made it a lot better and now the problem is back and is very frustrating for me. I suppose I could contact Acer, but I don't really like the idea of sending a laptop I just bought for repairs, and Amazon is very easy to return things to. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the 1830T, it's by far the best and nicest I've tried in its category, and most people on here have no such problems with their mouse buttons. But they are a bit quirky in general which gives me hope that Acer might address the issue in newer units. I'm very likely going to try to get another one in a few weeks or months.

 

Not as good??? If you can get 8 hours out of it without any tweaking, then your doing fine. My rule of thumb on these things is to plan on getting 15-20% less than claimed battery life with "normal" usage and be happy when you do better.

 

Like i wrote: I used it very moderately. According to tests and user reviews the 1810tz reached up to about 10 hours under similar conditions. On the other hand especially the 1830T performes much better than the previous model. Aside from battery endurance the new model is a step forward in almost all aspects. I'm really happy with it.

 

No matter what I did(and I tried everything except an SSD) I never got more than 6.5 hours out of my 1810TZ.

 

I'm with thundernet. 6.5 hours out of the AS1810 is a more realistic number for most people. I'm not buying into those tests/reviews.

 

Same here with my 1410T.

 

Installed the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT hard drive. Here are my first thoughts:

noise: The momentus drive is a little louder, I can definitely tell when the drive is being accessed whereas w/ the stock Hitachi drive I had to look at the light. It's not too bad just noticeably different. I can live with it.

heat: not sure yet but I think it generates a little more heat but still very usable. I've read that it consumes a little more power so I'll have to see how the battery holds up -- haven't tested it yet. We'll try to stress it and measure the heat on the bottom shortly.

speed: oh-yea! Windows cold boots to the login screen in <25 seconds, logged in with apps loaded in < 40 seconds. Very nice. I don't have too many applications loaded on the clean Windows 7 install yet but first impressions are very positive. A big difference is also the lack of software bloat. Wake-up time from sleep is about as instantaneous as I could hope for. Very nice. We'll see how it holds up with more apps loaded.

Still need to do so more continuous video loop battery tests but I do actually want to use the 1830t this weekend.

Happy 4th of July to all.

 

Anyone got their hands on the u5400 processor (in the 1830TZ)? Still waiting for reviews...

 

Did a quick 15 minute stress test using OCCT to measure the heat output using an infared thermometer. Ambient temp was about 75 degrees. On the topside (keyboard side) I measured the following (roughly) maximum temp's in F. (Three values for each row representing left, center and right of keyboard.)

95, 92, 85 (top of keyboard)
99, 94, 86 (middle of keyboard)
95, 93, 86 (bottom of keyboard)

I took one row of measurements across the bottom side of the laptop where I could find the most heat output (top to bottom).

105, 101, 99 (left, middle and right of bottom side)

Also, CoreTemp showed a max internal Core temperature of 67 degree Celsius (or about 152 F) during the 15 minute stress test. Idle temp for the two cores ranges from 40 - 44 C (104 - 111 F).

All of this is with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT drive installed. I didn't take any measurements with the stock drive in. Probably should have.

Subjectively speaking, the heat doesn't bother me at all. Yes it is warm but it is not uncomfortable to put on my lap even at max utilization. After CPU utilization drops off the temp's drop off pretty quickly as well. At light use it is very comfortable for me to use on my lap. However, I haven't had it on my lap for more than 20 minutes at a time so far.

 

The Momentus XT has a 4GB SSD and 500GB 7200 rpm conventional drive? I guess the concept is to run the operating system in the 4GB portion and everything else loads from the HD - is that right?

I would rather stay with my 40GB SSD, 8GB SD and 360GB 7200 rpm external.

Bronsky

 

It's got 2GB of flash, and it's used strictly for read caching. You have no control over what data goes in there. It builds up a profile of your usage to figure out what to keep in there, although the profile is lost in various circumstances (such as defrags).

You can read a review here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd

 

^It has 4GB SLC SSD, not 2GB....

 

That is indeed a nice setup. However, for portability and storage capacity the $130 500GB drive from Seagate is hard to beat. The reviews indicate "close to" performance of SSD but at near nominal prices for a 500GB laptop drive.

see also an impressive video (albeit from Seagate).

 

I feel the same way, especially on a small laptop. If you don't need the extra storage there's no beating less heat, less noise and less vibration in something you're using on the go. The 1830T was a lot more pleasant to use with an Intel SSD in it. On the desktop I have the OS, all the apps, and a selection of Steam games sitting on a 80GB Intel G2 with plenty of room to spare. Everything else I put on a cheap 1TB Samsung Spinpoint. It's kind of a dream really. Personally I'd rather be able to say what goes on SSD storage and what doesn't, but I guess different problems call for different solutions.

 

Sorry, yes, 4GB, but it's largely irrelevant; the pertinent part of the post is that the caching happens transparently to the user, rather than the user having to install his OS on a special partition. Also, the various cautions that the review brings up (mundane things such as defrags kill the caching profile).

 

Any previous 1810T users get a hand on an 1830T i5 yet? Curious if it's even worth upgrading my 1810T to a 1830T i5... Was browsing through the last 10 or so pages of posts. Didn't really see any concrete first-hand comparisons.

Cheers,
Kermee

 

Not worth it. Better to wait until the Sandy Bridge powered 1840T comes out next year. That is when you will see a big increase in performance and battery life.