Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG Owners Lounge

I have no intention to get defensive, I am just asking you about the point of your question in the first place, and your initial reply to my post wasn't exactly done in the best of taste

And seriously... you are asking if the 4820TG someone bought on the east coast would "flex" differently from the 4820TG someone played with on the west coast?

 

ok

well i have no idea if the flex is bad or not or really matters. but it was certainly more than any notebook around it.

so im curious if anyone has had any bad experiences with the flex.

the screen is certainly thinner than most, so i expected some flex there. the ODD, i didnt expect it to be so loose/flexi. the KB flex doesnt worry me.

even with the flex i am still considering this notebook, i just wanted to know if they all have it and if it has caused any problems.

 

Tinkeringmc... There is really no way you can compare the opinion of yours with other people... because

1. Different people would apply different strength to their "flex test"
2. They would have "flex" it at different points on the laptop
3. Each person "flex" tolerance would be different
4. "Flex" is very very subjective...

 

not looking to compare my version of flex (its irrelevant) the flex is mentioned in numerous reviews and for me the amount is in comparison to many notebooks around it. so again, for me its about how much the flex matters to durability and ease of use. thats what im curious about.

 

Durability, I will let you know if my unit ever breaks down under certain kinds of usage like work, moving around, home etc

Ease of use... now thats another subjective question

Frankly just go with your heart...

 

im going to see another one in another store, just in case the display model at first store was a lemon or had been thrashed.

i had a 3810 prior, and that was so solid and such an awesome notebook, i just wish it had a gpu. cant get the 3820 where i am ;-(

 

Never trust any of the display models. God knows what the customers do to them.

 

also ive read in this thread somewhere that someone was commenting that the laptop is alot sturdier with the battery in as thats the complete package. from my experience of using it, its very durable and tough. i havent had any problem with flex at all ^__^

can someone who has the laptop p or post on here their window experience index score? i want to check if theres something wrong with mine... thanks

 

It looks like the I5's are starting to go out of stock everywhere. The are no more I5-450M 3820TG's for sale on the PCHome webiste in Taiwan, where the US buyers have been importing from.

If anyone is thinking about buying a 4820TG, there is an add in this months circular for Microcenter and the prices are supposto be good to September 5, 2010. If they have no more in stock, I would call and see if you can get a raincheck, in case the new models are more expensive.

Bronsky

 

I have a 4820TG in my hands now. Im super satisfied.

But i have a problem changing harddisk. I removed the screws that are holding the cover to the RAM and harddisk. But i CANT remove the cover. Are there more screws to remove? Or is it a special way to remove the cover. Help anyone ASAP?

 

The cover is hard to remove the first time. The screws do not come out but you have to make sure the threads are completely backed out. Then start at the finger tab at the top and lift up a bit. Then go to one side and push in a bit (gently!!) and you should feel the side tabs release. Do the same to the other side and it should be off.

Bronsky

 

I hope amazon gets the i5 4820TG in stock sometime soon. If they do, I'm going for it.

 

The middle screw comes out for mine~

 

Just ordered mine for £899, with a 2 year warranty. Can't wait to get a hold of it.

 

I still have trouble getting Everest to work. Every time I want to begin a benchmark, it logs for a few minutes, and then my computer locks up. I have to hold the power button to reset it

 

Well for those of you who are thinking of getting this laptop I have a couple of things I noticed with my laptop after about a week of use.

My "w" key seems to be squeaking for some reason. I haven't really gamed a lot on it so I don't see a reason why it should be doing that. I hope that it doesn't happen to my other keys.

My temps seem a bit on the high side compared to other users on this site. My cpu cores seem to reach up to 96C and my 5650 goes up to 90C.

I mentioned this already, but the power plug is hard to put in.

All in all I am pretty pleased with this laptop, but those are a few annoyances I noticed.

 

Just curious if anyone here can comment on the reliability of Acer Timeline notebooks in general.

Basically I work at a laptop repair shop, and about 20% of the sets that we repair are 13"/14" Acer Aspires/Travelmates. Pretty much all of them have a motherboard problem and they are all just timebombs waiting to die. Just 2 days ago, an Acer Aspire 4520 died on me right after I rebooted it.

My sister wants to get an Acer Timeline 4820TG, but I'm concerned about Acer's reliability as a whole because I've seen so many problematic Acers. Furthermore her previous laptop was another problematic set (Toshiba Satellite A/M200), so I don't want her to hit a double jackpot by buying another problematic model.

To be fair, pretty much all the Acers that I've repaired are all part of the Core Duo series. I haven't really seen any problematic Acers with Core 2 Duo Merom/Penryn CPUs yet. I'm just cautious about both Acer and Toshiba in general.

 

This. One user mentioned the flex on a display model and was worried. He ended up buying one anyway, but the one he got had little flex compared to the display model.

The battery increases sturdiness a lot. Flex tests have to be done with the battery in.

And here's the WEI score: http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/3381/weis.png. I recommend that you use 3Dmark for more accurate results, though. WEI didn't notice my OC on either PC (desktop and lappy) although both were very significant (30-45%).

The TimelineX's haven't been out for long so I don't think anyone of us can really predict how long these are gonna work. If you have bad experiences with them, avoid the Timeline's, BUT I wouldn't avoid the TimelineX's because of Timeline problems. Remember that these use new CPUs, new MBs and new GPUs. Probably RAM too. Everything's been changed. You simply shouldn't decide based on experiences with Timeline's. OTOH, if you think it's risky to pick an Acer then don't. You won't feel good about the purchase if you're just waiting for it to break. You and your sister should feel good about the purchase, not live in fear.
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@ everyone: I have noticed a flaw in the design of these things. I use this for school and carry my lappy in my bag (protected by a sleeve as my bag doesn't have a compartment for laptops). After using it for 2 weeks, I have scratches by the edges of the keyboard/screen. When transporting it, it seems the screen is pressed down towards the keyboard. The glossy edges of the screen & KB make contact and the small vibrations make them rub against eachother, thereby scratching the surface.

Just a warning for the other students out there.

It has, however, survived my recent bike crash without a scratch (ironical, huh?) and, although it was protected in a sleeve in a bag (epic padding), I still think that's a good sign. It doesn't seem that there's any damage to the internals either.

 

As a former Envy 14 owner, I've posted my review on Amazon. Bing canceled my 30% for exchanging a defective unit! So I returned that and bought the TimelineX instead. I'm actually much happier with this one considering that I mostly game on my desktop and battery is the most important factor for me. I don't miss the radiance screen or the trackpad. I do miss the nicer keyboard on the Envy though (even if they did give me the wrong one!).

 

hey mans thanks heaps for the help ^__^ yeah i would use 3dmark but need to download it and its like 1gb so will use up too much of my download quota . yeah it looks similar to mine except the only thing troubling me is the hard drive even my friend's 1 year old laptop got a score of 5.9, my friend with the HP dv6 3030tx got 5.9 yet with the same capacity and rpm my laptop scoring a 5.5 any possible reason?

 

WEI sucks.

No, really, that's the reason!

My E8200 @ 3.88 GHz + HD 5850 @ 1050/1225 do not get higher WEI scores than my E8200 @ 2.66 GHz + HD 5850 @ 725/1000.
No matter what speed, I always get 6.9 on the CPU and 7.8 on the graphics.
This is because WEI sucks.

And regarding the HDD's, I'd say it's an error. I'd try doing a defrag and do the test with the lappy plugged in to avoid power-saving features from ruining your score (although it might not matter).
And to beat 5.9 on the HDD score, you need an SSD. I've heard there's a certain setting that can be switched before installing the OS to break the 5.9 barrier, but it only works in RAID, I think.
My 7200 RPM 1 TB drive in my desktop also gets the 5.9 score, just like my stock 5400 RPM lappy drive.

WEI sucks. Don't bother with it, it doesn't work. Your HDD rating is probably an error. Get HDTach ( http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach), run the bench, post a screenie and we can compare. It's only 1 KB, so no worries. My best idea right now.

 

saw that. gave you a "helpful" feedback.

 

Anyone here ever install an SSD into their 4820? Is it worth the upgrade? My birthday is coming up and it's on my list

 

Hey guys, quick question. What is your background picture for the login screen. I think mine was the regular windows 7 background, but now it changed to an acer one. Anyone know how to switch it back, I don't remember changing it.

 

i agree. its flimsy screen/lid that im mostly worried about. having read reviews saying this i refused to believe it until i look at one in person. sure enough i pressed on the back of the lid, not hard and u could see the affect on the screen.

now im not saying this is a problem. im just curious, with not much protection can something pressing into the lid/screen cause a problem to the screen?

regardless im still very keen on one as the m11x is just out of my price range ;-(

 

alright did as you've suggested and the results seemed abit low then again im not sure how to read the graph so not sure lol. please let me know if theres something wrong ^__^ thanks for your help man http://a.imageshack.us/img34/1678/hddv.png

 

As long as you don't pick up the laptop by its screen or place overly heavy items on top of it, the screen will be fine. I was also considering the m11x, but decided to go with the AS4820TG because it had better components for the price, and the battery life was basically the same. The only thing you get with the m11x that the Acer doesn't have is shiny lights (which I thought were cool, but not worth the extra cash). Otherwise, the Alienware runs games worse 99% of the time. It's not even lighter really, and the screen is tiny.

 

I have an unboxing video that shows the Acer as my initial background.

 

Here's mine:
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/9889/hddg.png

Remember that my drive is different as I have the 640 GB version.

Your average read speed worries me a bit. If someone else could run the bench to get a better idea of the general performance of these drives that'd be great (looking at someone).

 

I have a crucial 128GB M225 SSD. I get a WEI score of 7.9 so I don't think my scores will help.

 

Forgot

 

How are you liking that drive, Bronsky? I'm thinking of picking up an SSD soon.

 

The drive is flawless as far as I can see. It really comes in handy when loading large data files or models into an analytical program. I had a C300 but it had issues. When I sent it back I saw that the M225 was on sale. I got it. It works perfectly as far as I can see.

Bronsky

 

Sweet I'm going to get either the OCZ Vertex 2 100GB or the Corsair Force 120GB.

 

I think the OCZ was on sale for $260 lately.

 

Where from I can get the i620 version Acer Aspire 4820TG? Also can you tell me anyother retailers other than microtech listed in the start?

 

The only location I know of selling the I7-620M version of the 4820TG is Computeruniverse in Germany. Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG-624G16Mns - Notebooks - computeruniverse.net

Bronsky

 

well given the 4820tg is so much cheaper im thinking i might bite the bullet. the build quality is definitely a concern. but heck, it has a year warranty, and i dont keep notebooks longer than 9 months usually.

 

I went with the Corsair Force 120GB due to suggestions in the SSD thread in the Hardware section of the forum and customer reviews. Just ordered on NewEgg... benchmarks next week

 

I like anything made by Corsair. My only problem with the SSD so far has been its size. The 3820TG has no highspeed port to facilitate transfer of large data files to external storage. Either an ESata or USB 3.0 is really needed with such a small SSD. Not having a port, I need at least a 250MB and a 500MB would be better. If the new Intel 300GB is anywhere near affordable, I will be swapping out the 128GB.

Bronsky

 

I'm going to place the current hard drive into an external enclosure and use it for videos and music. I am currently only using 60-70GB of space, so the SSD should be fine for me. I just hope to leave a little bit of room for an Ubuntu partition for school.

Here's my current startup time with the stock 500GB HDD, and it's better than I expected:



I didn't disable any startup programs. I am using Avira AntiVir for my virus scanner.

 

Is it possible to replace the ATi 5650 graphic chip with a 5850 one for the acer 4820tg ? Is it recommended to do so ?

 

The GPU is not replacable. If you want a 5850, you need to get an MSI GX640.

 

Question for Bronksy and others who have replaced the hard drive--is there a good step by step guide out there for switching to an SSD? I've never done this before, and I'm a bit nervous about making sure to create the right restore discs for the OS and drivers. Is it as simple as backing up, popping out the old HD and replacing it with the new one?

 

I would definitely be interested in this as well. I heard that there's a drive cage from which you have to remove the old drive out of and place the new drive into.

 

Hendrickson has posted this excellent guide for the 3820tg. Not sure how relevant that is for you 4820 owners...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ace...tg-new-ssd-hdd-photos-inside.html#post6311199

And for creating an ISO of Windows, see: http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html

The drivers etc are another question...

 

The Hendrickson guide shows you how simple it is to physically replace the drive. Here is the guide for converting an imported 3820TG. It addresses backing up your computer, formatting the new drive with windows 7 home premium and reloading all of the drivers, etc. http://forum.notebookreview.com/6465732-post1613.html

Bronsky

 

Did your batterytime improve with SSD?

 

I never ran the original 5400rpm drive, swapped on delivery. So, I don't know. In my 1410T it was not noticable.

 

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