Notebooks Without Reflective Coating

Hi all

I'm in Australia and currenly in the process of deciding on my second notebook, 1st one was TM 613TXV. I was keen on Acer Aspire 1692 but after much looking around have decided against it due to the numerous problems with it regarding power leak, noise, unsturdy chasis, dvd/cdrom issues and its crystalbrite display which is highly reflective.

I had a look at the 8100 but its out of my budget, although i'm not sure if it has the glossy coating on the screen as the 1692.

Can anyone suggest a few Acer model with the Sonoma platform preferably a widescreen without the Crystalbrite/glossy coating which causes reflection. Any that are close/similar to the specs and price of the Aspire 1692? Other brands would be ok too but prefer not to buy Dell,Asus and less known brands.

Also can anyone explain whats the difference between a wide screen to a similar sized screen which is not a widescreen?

Thanks!

 

8100 has no glossy screen. You can check the pictures included in the review on this site.

I think you should look at Asus models again. The brand isn't that famous, but they build one of the top notebooks, they are actually better Acer when it comes to build quality.

Maybe if you can provide a budget range, that would make recommending some models easier!

If you compare a standard and wide screen of the same size (like 15" standard vs. 15.4") wide, the wide screen will be shorter (just a bit). But the only real benifit of a wide screen is for movies. Unless you have a high enough resolution, then that would allow you to have 2 windows open side by side, that's if you need that in the type of work that you will be doing!

 

Thanks for replying. My budget will be between US$1500 - 2200. So the TM 8100 series will be too expensive for me. I had another look around on the acer Australia site which allows you to add in options and the TM 4102 has the following specs (Its not a glossy screen i figured);

TravelMate 4102WLMi BGH
* Intel® Centrino™ mobile technology
* Long life Lithium Ion battery up to 4 hours life
* ATI Mobility™ Radeon® X700 64MB graphics accelerator
* Integrated audio, twin speakers
* Built-in 56Kbps international fax/modem
* 10/100 LAN + 802.11b/g Wi-Fi LAN with Acer SignalUp technology
* Built-in full size keyboard with four easy-launch buttons
* Built-in touchpad pointing device
* Fast Infra-red, FireWire, S-Video ports
* Three USB 2.0 ports
* Weight: 2.95 Kg
*OPERATING SYSTEM Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
*CPU Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz, 2MB cache, 533MHz FSB)
*SCREEN 15.4" Active colour widescreen with WXGA Resolution (1280 x 800)
*MEMORY 512 MB PC4200 DDR2-SDRAM
*HARD DRIVE 60 GB EIDE hard drive
*OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW Dual Layer drive

http://www.shopacer.com.au/

If i increased the ram to 1G it will be quite a reputable specs i think and not cost over my budget with a more recent technology to last me for quite a while. I most use it to do work, videos, movies but not so much game focused. What do you think of it? Any bad things about this TM model? Any other recommendations of other notebooks?

Also is there a big difference between XGA AND SXGA?

Thanks!

 

Im starting to get annoying with the crystal bright screen.. Theres so much glare in light environments i cant even see.. although when its dark the screen is beautiful.. its up to you