Acer TimelineX 3820TG Owners Lounge. Info, benchmarks, tweaks, mods and upgrades

Anyone know if they ship to canada?

 

Sorry, they do not ship to Canada.

 

The AS3820T-3051 with the i5-450m processor is available for pre-order on newegg with an ETA of 7/15.

However it has a 9-cell battery, so it weighs 9% more than the AS3820T-5246 (which has a 6-cell battery), and is thicker as well.

I am still debating between this and a macbook pro.


12.8" (324.0mm) W x 9.3" (235.0mm) D x 0.9" – 1.1” (22.0mm – 28.9mm) H / 4.0 lb. (1.8kg) with six-cell battery

12.8" (324.0mm) W x 9.3" (235.0mm) D x 0.9" – 1.9” (22.0mm – 47.8mm) H / 4.34 lb. (1.97kg) with nine-cell battery

source

 

yeeahh just sold my lg p310 for 400 pounds ill be getting 3820tg with i5-450 and ati 5670 for 600 in PL in like a week or so xD cant wait ill make sure to put it through some xtreme gaming sessions while OCed and post results. This will be mainly bad comapny 2 and gta EFLC that i just got for a 10er of steam.

 

This model doesn't have the discrete graphics card though.

Congratulations! I'm filled to the brim with envy and jealousy.

 

Ho!

Received my 3820TG i5-450/320gb/5650 today (Scandinavian version, bought here in Norway where they are readily available). Can only concur with previous reports and statements. This is a nice little laptop packing very acceptable performance for the price and size. A solid upgrade for me, coming from a Packard-Bell 12.1-inch thingy with a 2.0ghz c2d and Intel onboard graphics.

Screen is a lot better than I thought it would be, bright and pretty nice. Haven't looked into color calibrating yet (I'm a photographer and I spent a lot of time in Photoshop), but doubt it'll win any prices for gamut width or color accuracy. Still totally serviceable if you do the final color matching on a calibrated monitor before print and so forth.

The keyboard is different, but seriously, I can't see much problem with it. Except the fact that a couple of years on various netbooks have made me used to the compact kind (which I've come to prefer over standard size). The 3820s keys seems excessively huge A few days and I'll be used to it, no biggie.

Build quality..well, more plastic than I thought, but it appears sturdy enough and gives a rather compact feel. I've seen much worse than this and it's a step up from the cheapest Aspires.

Heat. Woah, this thing is cool! That is, the exterior, under heavy loads I routinely see CPU temps up to around 80c and GPU around 60c. As expected, but the laptop is far from uncomfortably hot to the touch. Impressive in such a small package. Need to pop it open and have a look at the cooling solution, it got to be something to behold.

Battery? Couldn't care less, will be using it plugged in for most of the time, except some 1-2 hour long meetings.

Plans for the future/mods? Well a faster harddrive, either an SSD or one of the new Seagate Momentus XTs (most likely in a price/performance/storage perspective). Maybe put some proper thermal paste on too, if I can get my hands on some. Will probably play around a bit with clocking the 5650, mostly just for fun. Thats about it I guess, boring, eh?

Good luck with yours folks, and thanks to Hendrickson and the others providing valuable information in this thread!

Mac

 

I'll give a full play-by-play when it arrives. It only shipped on the 25th so I probably have plenty of time to wait. I bought mine from computeruniverse, same as Bronsky. I wasn't charged VAT on it (713.45 € without VAT plus 51.68 shipping via DHL to Vancouver). I expect Customs to charge me GST and probably PST at the border, but that remains to be seen since I haven't actually got it yet.

 

congrats mate ! thanks for your mini review they are always welcome xD enjoy your 3820tg oh im jelous cant wait till i get mine!

 

You lucky . We're techncially allowed to leave at 2pm on Friday, but I have obligations to do a walk-in-clinic at the city's library. We do however, get Monday off. It sure does pay (puns intended!) to be a grownup

P.S. Bron, will you put together a thorough review in my honor? That is, testing SC2 on ultra, PCSX2, Dolphin, and say, Street Fighter IV or GTA4 on it? Also, could you do a thorough review of the cooling system to show us how effective it is? I'd appreciate even a crappy youtube video for all this

Thanks!

 

Couldn't pass up Newegg's sale on the Crucial 128GB SSD. It's on its way. I'm pulling the German HD once I confirm that it boots. Lots of requests for an unboxing. After that, everything will be swapped and I'll run some benchmarks (in Dookie11's honor of course). Once I know everything is working properly, I'll order the I7-620M and the Mx2 for the CPU swap.

Bronsky

 

I'm too pumped for this laptop to actually come out in the US. The student bundle from Singapore looks fantastic...i hope they have that here. Bronsky, tell those delivery or shipping people to hurry up! I want another review Also, how much have you spent in total with this laptop and the upgrades (inc the SSD) so far?

 

$850 for the notebook. $300 Crucial 128 SSD $24 backlit keyboard. $15 power chord (could have gotten away with a $4 adapter). $12 Service Manual. $75 total shipping for everything.

Since my office is closing Friday and Monday for the 4th Holiday, it will probably not come until next week.

Bronsky

 

^ This makes me so sad.

 

Whoa. $1276 dollars total? It has nice upgrades though.

 

Still need to spend $250 on the I7-620M. As far as I know, it will be the only I7-620M 3820TG in North America (maybe the western hemisphere) when I'm done.

 

You're a pal

Also, why do you choose Mx2 over the much fabled ICDiamond7? What's the diff in terms of performance/effectiveness and also diff in price? Also, where does one purchase Mx2 or ICD7?

 

Hello, I've been lurking in the forums ever since my Asus M50VM-B1 was stolen during a B&E last September. I'm also in Vancouver and am looking at getting a new laptop. I've been looking at the HP Envy 14, Asus UL30JT as well as the Acer 3820TG. I thinks the Acer offers the best "bang for the buck" and looks like a quality build. Does buying this laptop from Germany effect the warranty if I need repairs done?

Thanks

 

Hi Guys

I am considering to purchase Acer Timelinex 3820TG and 4820TG.
Wonder can anyone advise which is better? I will be using MS Office, listening to music / movie, surfing for research, no gaming, etc.

When I do a hand-on trial on 3820TG, I felt the size is just right (though both keyboard size is the same), there is no optical drive built in and it is amazingly light weighted. As for 4820TG, after the trial on 3820TG, the feeling after the hand-on trail is abit wide / slightly big. However, going without optical drive is something I am not getting used to it. Is built in optical drive important especially in any urgent case like OS corrupted (ie use of recovery CD)?? Will external DVD-RW drive able to use in the aforementioned urgent case, for example??

Also,
1) does Turbo Boost mean the ability to be overclocked to make application run faster??
2) for dual display (one external monitor and one laptop screen), via HDMI or VGA, can I achieve full screen on a 23" external LCD monitor with 3820TG?

Hope you guys could enlighten me.

Confused

 

The short answer is we don't know. It could and if that is an issue for you, I would not buy from Germany. Those of us who have done so understand the risk we are taking with open eyes.

@dookie Diamond would be a perfectably acceptable option. I think it is non-conductive. That is my main criteria. I don't want any possible drip to short out the Motherboard. There looks to be very little room in there. The selection of one over another is more habit strength than anything else. At that level the differences are fairly small. When you look at the kind of assembly lines that these units are manufactured on, it looks a lot like Henry Ford's original assembly line. A lot of the parts are hand assembled at a fairly high rate of speed. Taking the time to get a good thermal connection couldn't hurt.

 

You're able to use external usb devices for booting & recovery.

If applications make use of just one core, the system raises the speed for one core above the max speed that is used in dual core mode... if the thermal conditions allow that.

I don't know what's the max for VGA, but in HDMI mode you're able to go at least for full hd.

 

Hey Bronsky, if it's not too much trouble, it would be nice if you can also give us a video if you gutting out your laptop while you're doing your upgrades.

 

Video Graphics Array - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I think the 3820 comes with one year international warranty. This is what i read on the Homepage of cyberport.de. In Germany we have two years. So you will at least have one year, but maybe you can send a broken unit back to the german shop and they are going the change it. Then you might have also two years.

 

Well hello there...it seems like this laptop is bringing lots of us lurkers out of the woodwork!

The warranty is a big question mark. As a 3-year Dell customer/veteran, I've adopted a "diy" mentality when it comes to support . If warranty service is really important you probably want to think about one of those other models.

When mine arrives I'd be happy to meet you at my office if you live/work in town so you can kick the tires and see the legendary mediocre display

 

Thanks for the offer lvivier, I may take you up on it. I also work downtown. It'll be nice to see an Acer without the lousy bilingual English/French Canadian keyboard that most of our notebooks are plagued with here in Canada. Happy Canada Day!

 

No deliveries today.

Was doing some light reading ... the Acer 3820TG Service Manual and discovered some interesting stuff. There are 3 different panels used in the 3820TG (and probably all of the TimelineXs). There are panels made by AUO, Samsung and LG. The manual also lists the brightness at 220nit, not 200 (although I don't know if my eyes could see the difference) and the contrast ratio 500-1.

I wonder if any one panel is better than the others? If I recall, there is software that will ident. your hardware. I think I can find the link in the X200 thread. It would be intersting to catalogue the different displays and rate them somehow.

The BT module has a cable that is removable. Part No. 50.4HL01.011 I'm thinking about seeing how much these cost and maybe ordering a few. It would be intesting to splice jumper wires into cable and then use wire glue to affix them to the backlighting ribbon on the keyboard and cover the joint with shrinkwrap. That would make a nice clean plug-in power source.* Also keep an original cable for the BT module in-case I ever want to put the original keyboard back in the Acer. It will be restorable to original condition.

Bronsky

*credit to AcerInsider for refocusing me on the BT module.

Edit: Two other facts that I read in the manual. There is no question about the replacable CPU. It shows the socket removal. The Manual also lists the I5-540M as a supported CPU.

 

Everest Ultimate Edition tells me I have a AUO303C for my panel on my 4820TG.

 

So, Bronsky, is there any chance for us to swap out displays?

Also, is the touchpad multitouch? And can the sides and bottom be use as a page scroller?

 

Looks like the displays can be swapped (lots of work here). I'll have to read up on the touchpad. My unit is not here yet.

Bronsky

BTW, my 128 SSD shipped today. All of my parts are now in transit.

 

^ The parts will be there sooner than the unit itself

 

Lousy week for a 4 day holiday weekend to fall. I know I'll be stopping by on Sat to see if there are any attempted delivery notices.

Bronsky

 

Nyahaha I have to bully you up for this wait. 4 days?! Man I'll be finishing up 3 games by then.

 

Shipping status has finally been updated for the first time since the 23rd. New status is:

30.06.10 12:33 Shipment in transportation to destination country.

Wow are they rowing this thing across the Atlantic? At least I'm glad to see that tracking is still working. I hate to say it, but it looks like the package sat at the internation shipping hub for nearly a week.

Oh well. At least its on its way. Maybe its on a plane instead of a raft with a bedsheet for a sail.

Bronsky

 

Doh...I should've just ordered one to have it sail across the water with yours lol.

 

Damn, that is slow...I'm gonna be waiting forever for mine. If it gets handed off to Canada Post at the border the next model will be out by the time I get the damn thing.

 

Hey guys,

I recently brought a 3820T (the sibling w/o the dedicated graphics). Seems like on my factory setting Win7 Home Premium, the jump lists only jumps to system32 folder, no matter what I am trying to "jump" to... Anyone experienced that?

 

Is it going DHL Post? I'm assuming what happens if that the package goes to a hub, gets containerized and they sits and waits for room at basic air frieght rates until somebody has room on a flight they have to fill. Even still, it seems like a long time. But, I remember that Hendrickson waited forever to get his too. What ever happened to that German efficiency I've always heard so much about?

On a positive note, the SSD was shipped from a warehouse in New Jersey . It'll probably get here tomorrow. I've lost track of the keyboard. I'm sure there's a tracking link somewhere.

Bronsky

 

any tracking information? I check the delivery time from Germany to Toronto is 5 days, maybe same to vancovor, I think it will take some time at custome. waiting good news from you

 

everything is more closer to you

 

Now I'm really confused. I don't think this tracking is very reliable. Here is the new status updated 1-7-10:

Date 30.06.10 12:33
Brief Status Transport to destination country

Status Shipment in transportation to destination country.

The route of your parcel
23.06.10 17:03 Order Data for this shipment was submitted electronically to DHL by sender.
23.06.10 15:34 Shipment in transportation to destination country.
23.06.10 15:34 Shipment in transportation to destination country.
23.06.10 15:34 International shipment was processed at export sorting hub.
30.06.10 12:33 Shipment in transportation to destination country.
30.06.10 12:33 Shipment in transportation to destination country.


The middle two entries from the 23rd are new. So, it now looks like the package may have been traveling since the 23rd and maybe it is very close. What a truly crappy tracking system. This is the best they can do?

@hendrickson is this the way you got tracking notices? Did they give you a suggested delivery date? They ever tell you where the package was? UPS tells you what building it is in or which truck it is on.

 

I am in canada and when i put my postal code in ontario in, it says UPS is not available? how are others getting UPS
i even tried my friends in toronto and same thing.


Bronsky how are you tracking your package?

It seems that DHL really is just operating as Deutsche Post AG so they handle the package and DHL just has it's labels on it.

happens to me when i order stuff from the USA even though we have DHL here and dhl trucks when it comes to the border CanadaPost deliveres it


i am looking at this : http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/e90378895/acer-aspire-timelinex-4820tg-5454g64mnks.asp

does the 13inch only have the dual cooling system or all?

 

This is why DHL no longer operates in the US. Sigh...I might have to pull the trigger on one just cause it's going to take forever to receive it.

 

@lastdon, only the 13'' has dual fan...

 

Bronsky:

You might try going to this URL and clicking 'Parcel: Single Inquiry Under 31.5kg'. Enter your tracking code in the dialog that pops up...I don't think the computeruniverse site is showing all the tracking information.

http://www.dhl.com/en/mail/mail_essentials/track_trace.html

I did that and got some more detailed info (still showing it in Saulheim since the 26th).

 

Yea ... did that already. For some reason, it ony shows a general statement. It now says that the next event is delivery to reciepent. It could have something to do with the fact that DHL is not operating in the US anymore.

@lastdon I had the same problem when trying to configure the delivery of my unit. I wonder if we could get more options if we talk to someone there. By now, they should be noticing that they are shipping units here.

 

I have a problem with my 3820TG. When I use the keyboard, the touchpad stops working. And also, if I just click a random button on the keyboard, the touchpad uses about 2 seconds before it reacts.

I have tried downloading the drivers from Acer's website, but they didn't solve the problem.

 

@Bronsky:

I'm writing this on my yesterday-arrived 4810TG, for the 530€ I paid it's an awesome machine, especially the Intel x-25M G2 that makes this thing quite fast despite its SU7300. Also I undervolted this a lot, max CPU temp dropped from 74C to 54C

Anyway, the best way to get a delivery estimate is to contact DHL directly. As for myself, I emailed GLS for my delivery estimate and was given a precise status on the parcel + accurate delivery estimate.

Hope it arrives soon

 

so is there no notebook like this with an expansion slot?