acer travelmate 3000 series REVIEW (3004WTMi)

Hi,

To begin with...

So I wanted a quiet, light and fast laptop and I didn't want to spend more than €2000,- (roughly $2000 i think). From all the laptops I researched only 3 were left. Sony, dell x1 and this one. The acer cought my attention because you get a lot of speed and memory for relatively "little money". 2 kg was my upper limit so with 1.65 kg with ig battery I am quite happy. I choose acer in favour of dell because of the screen quality and processor speed. And I also wanted something else for a change. I already have 3 dell desktopsystems...

I bought…

The acer TravelMate 3004WTMi

Mobile Intel® Centrino™ technology with Intel® Pentium® M 760 (2.0GHz), Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition, 12.1" XGA Wide TFT Display, 64MB shared VRAM, External IEEE DVD-Dual Double Layer, 100GB, 1024MB (2*512) DDRII, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g WLAN, Bluetooth, Docking connector, 4-in-1 card reader

The story...

First of all the laptop had to be dead-silent. Not even a quiet whisper or whirring.

After I turned the machine on for the first time i immediately noticed the fact that it wasn't quiet. It wasn't exactly loud either, but it wasn't dead silent for sure...damn (i thought). Then I installed Winxp. (It actually is a ghost-image that is being written to disk.) The fan was on almost constantly which is normal for a 2 gighrz pentium M under load. Everything went fine until I restarted the machine. After the bios was "loaded" the system prompted me with an error. "Broadcom network not found, please insert cable" or something like that. I can't recall the exact phrase. After some time I had the idea of switchin' off the network in the bios. That worked, but instead of the first error I got a second one; "operating system not found". 2 days later I found out that the harddrive had died :O(
At the same time my system was dead-silent without the presence of the HD. Then I knew it was the hd making the noise and realised I had to switch it for a quiet one. I tried the 40 gig 5400 rpm hitachi drive but it wasn´t quiet enough. I ended up using my old HD from my sony laptop which is 100% quiet. It´s a 20 gig 4200 rpm hitachi. Thank god I didn´t have to wait for any repairs...

The review...

The machine looks good. Allthough it has a bit of a plastic feel to it, it doesn´t really look like plastic that much. I like the two-tone black/silver look. The leds in front of the laptop are nice when they light up. The speakers in the front are very small but look nice too. The three led-lights left of the keyboard are very handy. You can see if the HD is busy etc..
Everything is very well placed. There is actually nothing which disturbs me.

The keyboard is good. You don't have to press very hard so i seldom miss keys. Perhaps 1 in 50 strokes misses. The keys are big enough for my fingers (which aren't that big.) To be able to fast darken and lighten the screen and adjust the volume with the Fn & cursor keys is very handy. Allthough i have to get used to the home en end keys for which you have to press the Fn-key also. The 4 progammable keys in the topleft can be quite usefull but i don't use them (yet).

The touchpad is actually very nice. A review which i read yesterday didn't like it so much. Very strange because i like it more than the sony and HP which i tried out. It is big enough and it does exactly what my finger wants. The middle (joystick-like) key is a nice gadget but i don't use it. The automatic scrollbar really works very good!!

I don't play games on the laptop. I use it mainly for writing texts, doing some work and surfing the internet. I wanted a fast machine because of windows vista and it hopefully lasts 5 years or so... My previous laptop was a 700 mhz duron sony which was getting slower by the year. I can't really say how fast this acer is but in an other review it was the fastest of comparable laptops.
Being an illustrator i sometimes use it for my work (on holidays or traveling). Photoshop and painter are my main programs. I tried a few things but didn't notice any speeddifference with my 2.8 gighrz pentium 4. In batterymode the machine works in 800 mhz i think. But with surfing there is almost no difference with the 2 gighrz mode.

The wireless network works very good. I have a 70 metre garden (about 210 feet) and the connection is great. Even with all the obstacles of trees and plants. However, it depends also on the winddirection.
When I type longer texts i switch the wireless off with the led-key beneath the touchpad. When i switch it on it connects most of the times. Only once in a while i have to press it twice to connect.

The screen is not a highgloss screen. The angles are good enough and the colours are accurate compared with my dell-lcd. The space you have with the 1280 x 800 is a big improvement over the standard 1024 x 768. Especially in painter with all of my menu's.
Text is very sharp and photos look very crisp and clear.
The brightness is good. Good enough for outside use. I tried painter this afternoon in a sunny weather in the shade. The colours are dimmed by the biggest lamp of the world but i can still recognise the colours. Reading tekst is absolutely no problem.
There is a big range in light and dark screenmodes. Especially at night in bed this comes very handy. My girlfriend can sleep while I surf ;-)

The sound is terrible but i never heard good sound on any laptop. It is stereo though.

I haven't tested the 3d graphics because i don't use it.

(Before you read the next session covering the noise and heat know that I always use the lowest cpu-speed possible; on AC this is 1600 mhz and on battery this is 800 mhz. I haven’t undervolted it yet, but I am planning to do so…)
When it comes down to noise I am very picky. My first priority with a new laptop is that it should be 100% silent in idle mode. For me this is more important than speed or whatever. I don’t mind the fan ‘s coming on once in a while. Because I switched the 100 gig Seagate harddrive with the 20 gig Hitachi my acer is now complete silent. You can hear the HD reading and writing very softly but that’s OK. There is no constant noise. When you put your ear to the keyboard you can hear a high pitched sound and I’m not sure if that’s from the harddrive or the wireless network. If you’re going to use an usb-device be prepared to hear a repeating high pitched noise. Perhaps this is due to poor isolated cabels, I don’t really know. But if I were to use an usb mouse I could’t live with it. This is the only minor thing of the acer. (Unless you have bad ears and don’t hear higher tones like my dad than you’re lucky)
There is no problem when using the firewire.
When the fan comes on it is clearly audible but not disturbing to me because it shuts down most of the times within a minut or so. Ofcourse it depends on what you’re doing. When I’m working in painter the fan is always on. Luckily I use my desktop 90% for this.
Being on batterypower the fan almost never comes on. With acpower the fan comes on pretty fast. Like typing in word for example brings the fan on 33% of the time. That’s why I pull the powercord when doing stuff.
As far as heat is concerned I have never felt uncomfortable. I can image though if you do computing intense tasks and the season is summer it can get hot. Put a hardcover a4-sized book underneath and the problem is solved.

Battery-life is good. I rarely use my laptop for more than 4 hours. Perhaps only when working in painter which uses 100% cpu the battery is down in 2 to 3 hours. Doing normal day tasks it will hold out for four hours easily.

The External dvd rewriter connects to firewire and it’s a nice small square shape. It feels cheap though but it reads and writes very good. I hope it stays that way the coming years.

The customer service here in the Netherlands is good. Within 3 days my dead HD was replaced with a new one and I didn’t have to send the laptop along.

All in all, I must say that I am very happy with this acer. The only weakness is the high-pitched noise when using usb devices and perhaps a little weakness is the plastic feel. But most important (for me) is that it can be made 100% silent if you’re willing to buy an other HD. The HD shipped with the acer isn’t that noisy after all I have to say. Perhaps you say ”MAN, I can barely hear it!” But I am just a very sensitive 37 year old man only wanting the best*

Last words; I could’t be happier with my acer and hopefully it will last until 2010.

Greetings,
Ivan

Feel free to ask me anything…

(*Don’t forget that this review is very subjective. I can only compare this acer with the new hp 4200 and my old sony.)

 

Thanks. Looks like a little powerhouse.

 

Good review! Thanks!

 

Hi Friend, I have an Acer too. I hear a little sound that comes between irregular amounts of time.

Is it coused by my USB mouse?

It sounds like a tic of a clock a little bit grave.

Is there any solution?

Thanks

 

You can simply test it by unplugging the mouse. I unplugged it and the beeping sound was gone. I don't have a beep when I use firewire. I don't think that a firewire mouse exists?
There is something else I did not mention in the review. I had a strange peeping sound from the HD when I did a first startup (with a non-acer winxp install) but whenever I put it into standby and wake the computer the beeping sound was gone. When I later did a fresh acer winxp recovery the beep was gone. Very little chance that this is causing your beep.

ivan

 

Thanks for this nice review.

I almost can't believe that a laptop with 2GHz processor can be so silent that your main concern is actually a hard drive noise and some beeping related to the USM mouse! Sounds very good.

Would you please measure the total length of 5 or 10 main keyboard keys? Just to see if they are full size or smaller.

Did you try to work on your laptop for many hours non-stop? Does it still keep silence then?

So, the fan has no nasty wining sound, just a rustle?


Are you going to undervolt it?

 

hi ivar,

5 keys is 9,4 cm. It seems to me it is a little bit smaller than a regular keyboard.

When surfing and writing text on the lowest cpu speed the fan almost never comes on. The spinning of the (now deceased) seagate momentus 100 gig was very noticable. It's the only sound you hear when the fan is off. Perhaps because it's right under the cap next to the touchpad. I got a toshiba 4200 rpm 100 gig replacement from acer which was more quiet, but still not as quiet as my 20 gig hitachi which only produces an almost unhearable high beep. I use the 20 gig hitachi now until i run out of space. I still have 12 gig left with all my programs installed I do have a desktop with all my other stuff though.
When on 2 gighrz with cpu intense apps the fan is on almost constantly which is normal. I don't find the fan annoying. It's got a little wining perhaps but after some time you don't hear it anymore. It also depens on where your attention goes.
My old sony is more quiet. The sound is more like a tiny breeze blowing. I am very critical when it comes to computernoise.

Even for many hours the fan is silent (on lowest cpu-speed)

I am going to undervolt it the coming weeks. I'll report on this.

But then again, if you are looking for a deadsilent system (apart from the heat), on max cpu-speed the dell x1 or samsung q-something is the better choice.

greetz, ivan

 

If it is the distance between the first to the sixth alphabetic keys (i.e. Q ~ Y or A ~ H), then, the keyspacing is about 1.88 cm ~ 1.90 cm of standard keyboard. That's almost identical to most 14.1" or larger laptops with full-size keyboards. Very good information for perspective buyers of the Acer Travelmate 3000 series.

 

Hi all

I have just bought a TM3004......I am more or less happy with it, ......i do not think it is that noisy ....but it is louder than my old TM382...but it does have a bigger processor so it gets pretty hot.

I do however have a couple of big problems with it.....Firstly, i use Skype ( VOIP software ) for communications, and my external microphone just will not work on this machine. Firstly it is very very very quiet and has loads of hissing in the background...I also tried a usb microphone but that had a different problem, it did not cut out the built in microphone so i got lots of feed back. I spoke to acer ( after trying all the usual settings which either did nort work or were greyed out, and they said that they thought it was a software issue but did not know how to fix it...They suggested reinstalling windows...this is a one day old machine!

Yes...the speakers are absolutely the worst....i have had a lot better in the past from acer machines...even the tm382 which is not great.

Last problem, ...the dvd will not read or write "minus DVD's....Well that is most of the time it ....read a -dvd once but that was it.

Any ideas?

 

hi,

I just tried reading a -DVD and it's no problemo. I do not have a microphone to test my 3004 with it, unfortunately. If you put the cpu speed at high instead of maximum the vent. will kick in less of times and your noise will be less as well.

all the best, ivan