Which -- Timeline 1810T vs Ferrari One -- to replacing ao751h netbook

Anyone who has compare the two?
Similiar price, similiar specs, similiar 3 pound weight, similiar form factor, same 11.6" screen, except for CPU and graphics.

I've got an Acer Aspire One 11.6" netbook, which I had to purchase in an emergency to replace a failing laptop two days before travel. It's great, except it's a bit too slow. I managed to make it perform miracles such as smooth YouTube playback and 100% stutterfree AVCHD video file playback (from my Panasonic camera), but I need to use heavyweight apps now, plus a little lightweight video editing (just trimming clips) and much faster copying and synchronization of big files between computers over Ethernet (gigabit) and faster USB performance. And possibly, occasional Blu-Ray quality playback, which both alternatives can do.

So.... I'm looking for a full-performance laptop in the same form factor, and it has boiled down to the Acer Timeline 1810T (SU7300 Core2 Duo version and Intel GMA4500), and the Acer Ferrari One (with the AMD Turion64 X2 and Radeon HD3200). Some love/hate the Ferrari branding, but I don't really care about the Ferrari branding, however red is my favourite color, and is the color of my ao751h anyway.

Which CPU and graphics perform better than the other?
I would bet the 1810T with the Core2 Duo would have better CPU scores, while the Ferrari One would have the better graphics score (being a Radeon HD3200).
Am I right thinking this way?
Anyone who has experience comparing the two?

 

Both have stellar reviews everywhere (typically 4.5 stars out of 5) because of observed near-desktop performance in a netbook form factor. I don't think I can go wrong with either. At this present moment, I'd be leaning towards the Timeline 1810T because it is more widely available.

Opinions?

 

It should be along those lines.
CPU or Graphics which ranks higher in your priority?
Note: 1810T has better batterylife as well.

 

depend how important battery life vs gaming is for you.

From reading onlines reviews and personal experience with my timeline 1410.

1) 1810t has a much better cpu (even my su2300 is benmarked above amd x2), so on CPU intensive task, 1810t wins hands down.

2) Ferrari One have 44wHr battery rated for 5 hour but realistically give about 3-4 hour battery life. 1810t have have the 5600wHr battery rated for 8 hour and realistically give 6-7 hour battery life. So 1810t wins on battery life (although you probally could buy a 5600wHr battery for the Ferrari One, which might get you close to 5-6 hour realistically).

3) Gaming wise, Ferrari One beat 1810t hands down, no doubt about it.

4) Video wise, both computer are capable for GPU enabled 1080p HD video, Ferrari One is slight better for GPU enabled videos (WMP 12), but 1810t is better at flash video (Youtube, Hulu) atleast until flash 10.4 comes out.

5) Quietness and Heat, Intel wins hand down, CULV runs way cooler under load, so it won't annoy you with fan noise or burn your Lap. AMD on the other hand have some reviews that suggest it runs really hot under load and can burn your lap if use for prolong period. http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/acer-ferrari-one.aspx

So in the end, if gaming on the netbook is extremly important to you, go Ferrari One, for everything else go timeline 1810t

 

I came close with the Ferrari except....no HDMI if I remember...that was a killer. I would say this system with the SU9400 is much faster than the Ferrari and definitely twice as long in battery life from what I am told. I am getting 8 plus and just under 10 yesterday when I ran it dry.

Oh and also....no heat exudes from the system whatsoever...You can play vids and movies to your hearts desire and she stays cool as heck,

I have the new Olympic Special Edition 1810T-6188 with the [email protected] C2D, 4 gb RAM @800mhz, 4500MHD and have thrown in a 64gb ssd as well as Win7Ult64bit....she flies. The extras such as bluetooth, HDMI, 6 cell battery, 3 USB slots, independent switches to turn off bluetooth and/or wifi when not in use, or plug n' play hdmi switching make this a musy have.

Here are some initiial piks I posted in another thread...

As for looks...Ferrari is gorgeous.

 

Thanks... No HDMI, thanks for the tip, I don't know how I actually missed that. That would lean me more towards the Timeline 1810T. I'll likely go for the SU7300 version with 4GB and built-in Bluetooth as the 8% faster performance of the SU9400 isn't worth the 15% price premium for me, though if there's a sale I'll pay up to 5%-10% extra for it (or even to get the red color instead of silver)

I think I've made a decision to go for the Timeline 1810T with the SU7300. Gaming would be lovely, but I'd rather have the longer battery life and the faster CPU. (My other option is to pray for a SU7300 coupled with an Ion in the future, but I don't want to suffer too much longer with my temporary Aspire One ao751h)

Now, my next step is where to buy it here in Canada -- either in Ontario or Quebec -- or to buy it online from Amazon U.S. or elsewhere... (Future Shop only sells it in silver)

 

Oh....your Canadian....as I. I see why you have been considering the Ferrari as it is by far cheaper than the average US price of $900 when compared to the Cdn Futureshop price of $599.

On the other hand, I ended up grabbing my 1810T at what was an amazing low price of $705 but it dipped to a lower $688 at a place last week.

I follow systems here so, well, here is the Price Canada reply for the system I have as of today: $731.

http://www.pricecanada.com/p.php/Acer-Aspire-AS1810T-6188-Intel-Core-2-LXPM402003-640329/

And the one you are looking for would be here at $688:

http://www.pricecanada.com/p.php/ACER-ASPIRE-TIMELINE-AS1810T-8968-CORE-2-LXPM402001K-646520/

Considering I grabbed mine in the Olympic Version, upgraded processor, Win764 bit, larger hard drive, and 800 speed ram vice the 667, I thing the few bucks was well worth it.

Oh but wait....looked what I found... Futureshop beats Price Canada search and has the newer release (Dec 09) in the formfactor you seek with all the extras for $649. Great Price!!!!

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pr...angid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10135190&catid=25313

Good luck!!!!!

 

I also spent a lot of time trying to decide wether to buy the 1810 or the Ferrari One.

You could always take a look at the Ferrari One review I just posted: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=454989

 

I bought the Acer Timeline 1810T at Future Shop yesterday, as they had it in stock for that $649 price -- the one with the SU7300 Core2 Duo 1.3Ghz with 4GB, included Bluetooth, 320GB, Win7 x64. The Olympic silver edition looked better in person than I thought, so I'm happy.

That was cheaper than I can buy it on the U.S. Amazon site. Usually most electronics hit the U.S. first, but for some reason, we seem to get some Acer products sooner and for really good prices, often cheaper than the U.S. -- must be some weird free trade quirk or something.

It definitely runs circles around the ao751h netbook, running almost as fast as my Core2 Duo desktop computer (and in some cases, faster, due to Windows 7 x64 versus WinXP 32-bit for optimized applications). For the first time I can really feel I can get work done quickly on a 3 pounder -- whether it's heavyweight Visual Studio, graphics editing, lightweight video editing -- the horsepower and battery life is there. Despite the low 1.3 Ghz number, this Core2 Duo can crunch through multithreaded apps over 3x faster than a Pentium M 1.4 Ghz due to the efficency plus two cores combined. (+60-80% faster singlethreaded, then multiply this by two)

And wow -- hibernate in just 11 seconds flat -- even though there is 4 gigabytes of RAM!

 

Congrats..nice machine...

 

ya congrats, don't forget to do the low voltage cpu and 800mhz ram tweak if you want even better battery life and gaming performance.

 

Ummm can u direct me to these tweaks?

His ram is already 800mhz I believe..

 

Undervolting an already Ultra Low Voltage CPU should be kind of interesting -- but I just read the tweak thread and 0.875 is the lowest voltage without doing hardware modifications to my CPU, and I'm already at that voltage, I think. I imagine a slight overvolt would make this CPU very overclockable. At this time, the battery life is more than long enough that I will likely very rarely need to do that, but having extra tools at my disposal will be useful but I only want software tweaks, no hardware tweaks.

REPLACING BUILT IN LAPTOP KEYBOARD:
I just purchased a $9.99 replacement US keyboard off eBay from Hong Kong because I don't like the French keyboard and I prefer the large left SHIFT key. I'll remove the factory keyboard and install the replacement)

MINOR BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD ISSUE:
One problem I am encountering is I also use a tiny foldable Bluetooth keyboard with the laptop sometimes too, as a method of remote control (photo slideshows and video at the very end of a table, with a group of friends, or as another keyboard to allow two persons to share a chat window, also because I am deaf and like to use extra keyboards for chatting with in the same room). However, my Bluetooth keyboard and laptop seems to take about 5 to 15 seconds to reconnect if I leave the Bluetooth idling for more than 5 minutes. It seems that the reconnect after sleep mode is either delayed or at a low polled frequency, how do I tweak the Bluetooth for faster reconnection of a Bluetooth keyboard from sleep? (when the keyboard goes into sleep mode, or when the Bluetooth disconnects for any reason, such as putting the laptop into and out of sleep mode). I appear to already have the latest Bluetooth drivers from Acer's website. Other than that, it's mighty convenient to have built-in dongleless Bluetooth...

TWEAK THREAD:
I found the 1810T tweak thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=419117
(Undervolting, 800 Mhz bus speed, etc)

 

It is very simple to change this keyboard once your new arrives. I am awaiting mine but had to know how to do it in preparation.

If u look at he top of the keyboard u will find 4 tabs. Gently use a pin or something small and push them in (towards screen) and the keyboard will start popping above them. Once all 4 are free, slide a credit card in around the middle and lift up the keyboard to get your finger under the middle area. It will bow just a bit releasing the tabs located on the upper area of each side. Slide the keyboard up and the bottom will release showing u the ribbon. Loosen the whte ribbon retainer by pulling up and the ribbon will slide out.

Replace cable with new one, push white retainer down, slide bottom into place and then gently press around upper sides and top to click all tabs into place.

EDIT...I cannot imagine getting any better battery life from this system. Its great that on the left side, under the corner, are independent bt and wifi switches that allow u to turn them off or on at any time but even when I forget to turn bt off, I am above 8 hours which is way better than I could have ever asked for. My son is buggin me to get him same because its entirely believable that, w/o wifi or bt on, it can get 10 hours plus which is great for lectures in school.

Im still amazed at the battery life....worth the purchase alone by far!!!

 

Les - thanks for the instructions. I'll obviously verify with some tutorials, since it would be very nice not to need to take apart the laptop to replace the keyboard.

If I play around with the power plans a bit in 1810tray, I can make the Bluetooth behave much more reliably with just a 3-second reconnect delay. I haven't figured out what the hell I did, it must have tweaked the Bluetooth power management, but now the problem is back.

If anyone know what the specific checkbox or slider I'm supposed to play with, to make my external second Bluetooth keyboard "wake up from sleep" faster than 15 seconds, please let me know! (For those who ask, the second Bluetooth is a Stowaway Ultraslim Bluetooth Keyboard, discontinued, but the closest living relative is www.freedomkeyboard.com)

Other updates:

DRIVE C AND D
I was able to use Windows 7's 'Computer Management' to shrink the C drive by about 120 gigabytes and create a new 120 gigabyte drive D, without needing to install Partition Manager. I like to keep my media and data files on a separate drive than the system...

FILE TRANSFER AT 80 MEGABYTES/SEC
Next best thing to having a SATA port on my 1810T... I just copied large files between my Core2 Duo desktop and this netbook over gigabit Ethernet. It's very nice copying large multi-gigabyte video files at 80 Mbytes/second for the first 500 megabytes - then 42 Mbytes/second for remainder (only bottlenecked by the 320gig 4200RPM HDD in the Timeline 1810T, after the Win7 write-delay disk cache gets full with the first 500 megabytes). If my file is only 500 megabytes, it copies in only 6 seconds between my desktop and the 1810T! Slows down to about 20-25 Mbytes/second for large batches of much smaller files such as digital camera folders, but still faster than USB2. Definitely hard disk bottlenecks, not LAN bottleneck. My desktop computer happens to have two Ethernet ports built into its motherboard, one of which is already in use for my LAN, and a direct cable connection between two computers doubles the speed of LAN (2Gbps vs 1 Gbps) versus cabling via a switch or via a router. I just happened to connect the Ethernet cable to the second Ethernet port of my desktop (already did the right-click and "Bridge" to enable the second port to behave like an Internet/LAN port for another computer to daisychain to), and it just worked for a high speed file transfer and Internet through my home LAN... Blows away the speed of a USB2 external hard disk and USB2 thumb drives. I bet I could hit 80 MBytes/second sustained transfers if I got an SSD in the future. That's about 20 times faster LAN file copying speed than the Acer ao751h netbook, almost like having a SATA port on the 1810T...

 

Backlight adjustmet problem fixed:
Fn-left/right backlight adjustment problem found when hibernating and waking up. I lose the ability to adjust backlight via the Fn key when I've woken up from hibernate.
Fixed by upgrading to new BIOS (v3120 or later was reported to work, I upgraded to v3303)

Bluetooth keyboard reliability:
It seems more reliable if I use Max Performance mode. But not consistently. Just an additional observation of recent usage.

 

I don't use hibernate, and, in fact...have dissabled it. I find it useless when my system will do a full boot in less than 30 seconds.

 

Actually, I find hibernate useful as a standby substitute provided it's 15 seconds or less which the Acer remarkably does despite the 4 gigs RAM. I like keeping windows and documents open from time to time. (Though I save first)
I usually use my laptop in a nomadic manner, and there are times I suddenly need to move, or continue where I left off the next day...

I like being able to close my lid to make the system automatically hibernate instead of standby. Although, due to the long battery life even in standby, I've assigned the power button to hibernate and the close-lid to standby. (The Start Menu has the one-click Shutdown button, for those times I need to shutoff the system)

I've been using a Dell Inspiron 600M since 2003, and it had the very fast 10-second hibernate and wakeup (very fast for a 2003 model at the time), so I've carried over that habit... It's also useful for changing batteries, although I doubt I'll need to get a second battery for another two or three years (when this one inevitably loses capacity). I usually shutdown Windows only once every 2 weeks to 'de-clutter' its RAM. I like to use Hibernate mode to simulate a desktop computer that's always left on 24/7 -- an old habit of mine. Hibernate literally puts the computer into true statsis mode where I can even remove the battery while it's in Hibernate, and I've got all my big app windows back in 10-15 seconds. It's useful on the airplane takeoff/landing too because the laptop is literally turned off during Hibernate mode, especially fully completely with the battery yanked to eliminate any parasitic power draws -- something I can't do in Standby mode. I resume where I left off from the airport waiting room. Even works in the middle of a movie playback too.

 

Did I read that you ordered a US standard keyboard as well? Mine just arrived and I installed it. It took a grand toal 10 business days from China and about 2 minutes to install....its that simple.


I have created the perfect system I think...I am still stunned at the amazing battery life I get out of this.

 

Yep, I ordered a US keyboard from eBay for $10. I hate the small right-shift key, so this will solve my problem. It is great I can cheaply replace Acer laptop keyboards without opening up the laptop.

Also, I measured the wattage of my Acer laptop.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=457073
Very interesting stuff. It only uses 5 watts when idling, and only uses 12 watts when playing back high-def videos. Go check out my "chart".

 

I was looking for a neoprene netbook case for this laptop. I just picked up the "Nextech" 10.2" netbook case from Staples (Canada) on a gamble. (Not to be confused with Ne xxtech brand from The Source)

This case is just mere millimeters too small to fit the 1810T, but after lots of stretching, I got the whole thing mostly zipped up. I may simply 'stretch the fabric' over time, to make it fit better. My main concern is the metal zippers hug it so tightly, that the zippers may scratch the edges. I might remove the zippers and turn this into a simple permanently-open "pouch" purely designed only to protect the laptop lid from scratches, while this case is inside my backpack. (I'd insert front of laptop first: The battery end would just barely stick out by a few millimeters, that part of laptop I don't mind as much inevitably getting scratched over time.)

I suspect that this 10.2" neoprene case would be perfect for the smaller batteries on 11.6" netbooks such as ehe Acer Aspire One A0751h, which is a few millimeter less deep due to the smaller battery and doesn't have a slight battery bulge on the bottom.

I didn't want to buy a 12" neoprene case; they are simply too big. Just want a nice-hugging case for casual use, and for more heavyweight laptop transportation I will slip it (in its case) into the laptop pocket of my existing laptop backpack.