Acer Timeline 5810tz Review! Pics Coming Soon!

Acer Timelline 5810tz Review

Introduction

*Note: All prices mentioned are in CAD*

To celebrate starting my first year of university, I decided to spoil myself and ended up buying a 15-inch Macbook Pro
from the Apple Store, for a total of $1499.00 before taxes, and 1693.97 after Ontario's sale taxes. I really loved the form
factor of it, as I was coming from a hefty Toshiba M200 tablet, which was small and portable, but chunky and heavy. The
on the Macbook Pro was incredible with no flex unless you really wanted to flex it that badly, and even then I don't think
think it gave way. After around 2 weeks of receiving, I decided to return it. The battery only last 2 hours on the "Better
Battery Life" settings, and the computer ran much hotter than other Macbook Pros I had received. I not only loved it for
the design and the premium feel of it, but I loved taking it out of my bag, unzipping my executive premium leather notebook
sleeve and putting the laptop on my desk. I myself believe that Apple products are starting to become a movement, with
people only buying them so that they can be associated with the brand. That's just how I feel.

One thing I really loved about my Mac are its chatting capabilities. I loved how crystal clear the webcam was, and how well
Skype and iChat worked, so I decided that my next laptop would have to have a webcam.

I was cruising around Costco with my parents one day, waiting to take a new photo for my passport, when I realized there
were new computers on display, so I decided to check them out. Now Costco's laptops usually don't provide consumers with
much bang for their buck, and most of the computers on display are outdated and/or underpowered for their price points.
The newest addition to the display models was the Acer 5810TZ. After having read about the Timeline series on these forums,
I realized the price was incredible for it. It is usually $699.99 at Costco, but they had a MFIR for $100, dropping it to
$599.99 before taxes, which is $676.87 after taxes. Now, if you've been paying attention to laptop prices in Canada,
and compared them to the US, you've probably realized that we're getting ripped off here in the cold North, but after
checking Microcenter's website, I realized the price was amazing! And so I have been using this laptop for a bit now, but
here are my opinions on it!

Laptop Specs:

* Windows Vista Home Premium with SP2 (Upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit)
* Intel Pentium SU2700 CULV (1.3GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB cache)
* 3GB DDR3 SDRAM (1066MHz)
* 320GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
* 15.6-inch diagonal WXGA (glossy, 1366x768)
* Intel X4500M integrated graphics
* Intel 5100AGN
* Ports and connectors: (4) USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, Card reader, 10/100/1000 Ethernet (Gigabit),
SPDIF in, stereo microphone in, 1.3 megapixel webcam
* Weight: Around 2.4 Kg (~5.3 lbs not including weight of AC adapter).
* 6-cell ~60Wh battery
* One-year standard warranty


Build and Design

From the Acer laptops I've seen and owned (for a short time) in my life time, I know that their build quality is terrible.
In fact, I've seen more physically broken Acer laptops than any other laptop brand in my life! Now the Acer I owned for a
short while had terrible flex everywhere in its chassis, and the keyboard would give in to the slightest touch. The top
cover would also flex, not providing enough protection for the LCD.

That is nothing like this laptop. Acer really designed this laptop well, and you can tell just by looking at this laptop!
This 15.6 inch laptop is nothing short of being beautiful. The top lid is composed of brushed aluminum that just screams
sexy when you look at it, and it feels incredible when stroking it (sorry for any improper thoughts you may have while
reading that). The lid DOES flex though, more towards the middle of it, where there is less support. I have to really
press down to get it to flex though.

There is little to no flex in the actually chassis of the laptop once opened. Acer has also decided to start manufacturing
laptops that have the "chiclet" style keyboards, which is a big plus for this laptop, since the keyboard doesn't have any
flex while typing on it. The matte surface of the laptop is extremely easy to keep looking clean, as it does not shine
as much as other laptops, namely HP branded ones, and does not show smudges.

Screen and Speakers

The Acer 5810tz sports a 15.6 inch, 16:9 ratio LED-backlit screen, which although is not as bright as the MBP's screen,
still provides more than enough brightness to work comfortably. The screen is of the glossy type, which means it's going to
be a lot harder to work in sunnier conditions. For testing purposes, I sat in a lounge, with a window right behind me with
the sun shining right at the screen. The screen's brightest setting wasn't enough to overcome the sun's distracting rays!
Truthfully, I am not an expert on describing and reviewing screens, but from what I can tell, the display is a bit more
washed out than normal CCFL backlit glossy LCDs, but this is understandle as I'd rather have a brighter screen, and a
display that won't dim out as fast as CCFL technologies. Viewing angles are good past 90º, but anything less than 80º is
almost impossible to view. Horizontal viewing angles were decent, and I'm sure they don't matter that much to the average
user but correct me if I'm wrong.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The fullsize keyboard is very good for typing for long periods of time, which is helpful if you're writing 15 page essays
like me. The only gripes I have with this keyboard are:

*The shift key on the left side is INCREDIBLY small, and is the same size as any letter or number key. This really
aggravates me because I'm a touch typer, and I NEVER look down at my keyboard as I can always feel any keyboard out almost
instantly, and type without looking. It was different for this laptop because of the insanely small shift key, which might
just end up being a deal breaker for me.

*The numpad. Either you love it or you don't. Either you need it or you don't. In my case, I really don't need it as I'm
not working with any numbers this year and don't really input numbers onto spreadsheets. For others, I know this will be
like a gift sent from the heavens, but for me, I would've preferred if Acer removed the numpad, centered the keyboard,
and made the shift key alot bigger than it is right now.

The touchpad isn't as large as the MBP's of course, but it does have multi-touch capabilities, which means it has some
gestures like the MBP has. Two finger scrolled can be enabled by installing specific synaptics drivers, along with a
customizable two finger and three finger click. Also enabled is zooming (which is buggy enough to the point where it isn't
really useful at the moment). Just remember that the gestures work a LOT better on the Mac platform, they're still very
buggy on Windows, except for the two finger scroll, which I used ALL the time on my MBP, but on my Acer I only use it until
it starts to annoy me, and then I resort to scrolling down with the bars.

The touchpad is decent at most, I've tried many laptops, and I think this may be one of the worst touchpads. It's not SO
bad that it will be a deal breaker for you, but hopefully they'll come out with better drivers.

Ports and Features

Port selection is very good on the Acer compared to the MBP and the majority of notebooks and netbooks out there. There
are 3 High-speed USB ports, along with a VGA port, HDMI port, a microphone-in port and a SPDIF-in port. What really made
me happy is the inclusion of a dvd-drive in such a slim laptop. The card reader is hidden really well underneath the
touchpad. There are no multimedia touch keys, but there is a touch button that when pressed, enables powersavings mode
for maximizing battery life. The VGA port works fine, but I haven't really had the chance to try out the HDMI port,
but I'm sure it works fine. Playing HD video is another thing though...

Performance and Benchmarks

I was quite skeptical about the CULV processor, considering it isn't even a dual-core processor. I was afraid that
performance would be akin to that of netbooks containing an atom processor with an Intel IGP. When I first received the
laptop, turning it on for the first time took around an hour, as the computer reloaded a factory image with Windows Vista.
The computer was kind of sluggish at first, but after uninstalling such programs as the preinstalled Antivirus, and Acer
games, that is when the 3 Gb of RAM really started to shine. The computer was pretty fast, giving me no trouble or delays
when opening up multiple instances of Firefox, along with Word 07 and Excel 07. Now this laptop is meant for nothing but
surfing the internet, word processing and chatting/webcam purposes/. This means that this laptop should NOT be bought if
you are planning to play newer PC games (except for very light games like Warcraft 3 etc.), encoding and editing HD videos,
and editing photos. After installing Windows 7, performance increases were very noticeable. Startup time from a fresh
shutdown or reboot was decreased by a noticeable amount, and system performance SOARS now that I have Windows 7 Ultimate
64-bit installed. Benchmarks will come soon as I am on a 3 hour break at school and really not in the mood to install
benchmarking applications and the such.

Heat and Noise

WOW. To make a long story short, I tried to run a CPU benchmark program to heat the computer up as much as I possibly could.

I didn't succeed. The computer did NOT heat up at all, and the fan is not AUDIBLE AT ALL!!!!!!!!!! The MBP
would heat up an incredible amount, and would make me feel uncomfortable within 15-20 minutes of using it. This laptop
I can keep on my lap for long periods of time without it heating up and making my thighs feel like toasted buns.

Webcam

From what I know, the webcam works really well, but I do wish they would come out with 2.0 megapixel webcams for LED displays, it really would make a difference I think if you end up doing the registry hack for HD video in skype. This is what
a still image looks like on the webcam:



Obviously not the best picture but it still captures amazing 720p pictures for a webcam

Battery Life and Thoughts about Windows 7

When I first got the laptop, I was hovering at around 6:30-7:00 hours of battery life on maximum battery settings, which
is INCREDIBLe considering how much this laptop costs! Now, I'm the kind of person that NEEEEDS the latest technology,
and Windows 7 came out recently, so I had to have that amazing OS on my new laptop. As soon as I put on Windows 7, battery
life dropped to around 5:45-6:00 hours of battery life, which don't get me wrong, is still amazing, but I want that
pressure hourish time back! Right now the CPU runs at .900v, which I think is higher than on Vista. I haven't tried
overclocking yet as I couldn't find the registry line to edit on Windows 7, which totally makes me angry. The jump to W7
Ultimate 64-bit has been nothing more than incredible. It is easily, in my opinion, the best OS I have ever used, and the
jump from Vista to W7 is a lot more incredible than the jump from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and right now, after using it
on a laptop, I want to stay with a Windows based laptop.


Final Thoughts

Right now I don't believe you can find a better light and thin laptop than this, except for the 14 inch timeline model
which I'm actually thinking of getting as I can't stand the shift key. But other than that this laptop has been amazing.
Performance is adequate for schoolwork, surfing the web and listening to music. The long battery life is incredible and
I love being able to leave my charger on some days where I have less than 6 hours of school, it really keeps things
organized in my bag not having a string of thick charger cable in my bag. Overall, if you need a light and thin 15.6 inch
laptop for under $800, this is the laptop for you! Don't hesitate if you find it on sale, this is a very polished laptop
and I've been loving it ever since I got it.

*If there is anything else you'd like to know about this laptop, or my thoughts of installing Windows 7 please don't
hesitate to ask me! I will post your question in my thread with the answer so keep checking back for your answer! Please
excuse any grammatical errors I have made as I am quite tired and this is my first review *

 

Excellent review. It pretty much echoes my own experiences with this computer. I got it as part of the Staples Canada bundle that included an Acer Easystore 340 server all for $679. Like you, I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and am very happy with the performance.

I also appreciate that Acer is consistent about releasing updates. The new BIOS update (2.31) dated 11/13 gets you some nifty Olympic Rings at bootup in addition to enhancements behind the scenes.

Haven't tested battery life yet but I'm running Acer's power management software that seems to do a good job when I'm on battery.

As for HDMI out, it works great. Use it to connect to a Samsung LCD. Sound/video both work fine through HDMI.

 

Thanks for the feedback! One thing I love about all the gadgets I have are frequent updates, which improve system stability and add nifty new features.
Battery life is still amazing but I really want that time back under Windows 7. Apparently many people with smaller display Timeline's also have less battery life under Windows 7, guess we just have to wait till Acer releases updates to its power management utility

 

Where do you get (download the updates).. I checked the Acer website for drivers and I don't see the BIOS update... Please let me know.

Thanks!!

 

Service & Support

 

First off: I'm very happy with my Acer Timeline 5810TZ. Battery life is indeed amazing. I did buy a bigger battery, because the first one started to show signs of fatigue after more than a year of intensive use. Now it lasts me 8 hours again. No kidding.
But...
the screen is not sufficiently protected against damage. After less than a year coloured vertical lines started to appear in the middle and they got wider and wider with time. You could make them disappear for a minute by rubbing the bezel on the bottom of the screen, but they came back with a vengeance. So I replaced it. It's easy to do and costs 'only' 100 dollars, but now, after three or four months it's starting to do it again.
I know it is a technical, physical issue that has something to do with how the contacts are glued on to the bottom of the screen and very, very badly protected by a flimsy, very thin piece of sticky plastic film. It's an LG screen, normally a quality product, one would believe. This would definitely have been a case for warranty, but all that trouble for 100 bucks?
Second issue is the flimsy keyboard. It works well, but get's dirty very quickly, by design. A replacement keyboard is very cheap and super easy to replace. Look on YouTube.
So: it's light, bright, and works very well for my purposes. Win 7 64-bit has proved a great improvement and online support is good. So if you can live with aforementioned screen and keyboard issues, this laptop is a great asset.