plz give me some opinions on the japanese 13" timelinex 3820!

hi everyone,

i'm living in japan and looking to upgrade from my workhorse netbook after 18 months of loyal service. after initially downgrading from a dell xps, the netbook just doesn't cut it for me anymore. so i started looking into slim and light ultraportables with a bit more power.

i will be using it for heavy web browsing, remote torrent/network management, managing a large music library, light photo editing and organising, as well as lots of word processing. possibly some light gaming (not graphics-heavy new releases). the netbook tends to crap out if i attempt more than one of these things at a time.

the japanese version of the 13" timelinex is as follows:

Aspire 3820 AS3820-A52C
‰¿Ši.com - ACER Aspire 3820 AS3820-A52C ƒXƒyƒbƒN

Core i5 460M 2.53ghz
2GB DDR3 RAM
320gb 5400rpm hard disk
integrated graphics

which is going for US $660 at the time of this post. i think it's pretty good value, but first i wanted to get some more info.

firstly, i can't find any specs on the 'intel integrated graphics.' there is no switchable graphics card, so just how adequate would the integrated graphics be for my purposes?

also the website claims 6 hours of battery life, does this sound accurate? i can get about 9 hours out of my netbook at the moment.

so is this a good deal and will it be suitable for me? the price seems quite good, i guess i'm really only concerned about the graphics power. for comparison's sake, here is a new japanese asus U31f that i've been comparing it to: ‰¿Ši.com - ASUS U31F U31F-WX005BK [ƒuƒ‰ƒbƒN] ƒXƒyƒbƒN

the main differences are discrete graphics, longer stated battery life and a $200 price gap.

 

The main thing that differentiates the 3820 series from other 13.3'' laptops of similar price range, is its powerful 5650 GPU graphics that only appears in 15.6'' and seldom in 14.1'' laptops (it will be changing this year 2011 with Sony releases but that'll be several hundred $$ more expensive).

So I'd say try getting it with the 5650 GPU, or just get something else with integrated graphics.

 

so you're saying it's not really worth getting without the graphics card?

unfortunately the model with discrete graphics isn't available in japan so as far as the timeline is concerned that's my only option as I don't want to go above 13".

can you suggest some other laptops for around a similar price?

 

This is what makes this thin ultra-portable notebook so popular. Also, after you upgrade the ram to 8GB you'll be running VMs if you have to. Stock 3820s here usually come with a standard 4GB RAM. Either should handle remote networking like a champ

 

The thing with almost all laptops sold in Asia is, they tend to come with 2GB RAM lol. I don't know why they hate to sell laptops with 4GB standard but it's how they roll.

@OP,
You're not out of options at all, search up "pchome" in the 3820TG thread, you'll find lots of hits on how a lot of people all over the world bought very highly specc'd 3820TGs from Taiwan (Acer is a Taiwanese brand btw). Being in Japan which is right by Taiwan it shouldn't be too much hassle for ya.

 

to be honest I don't really feel that I NEED a powerful graphics card. as long as the system was able to play back the occasional 720p video. is the 3820 not worth $660 without the graphics card?

I took a quick look at pchome and it seems that even without shipping fees those models are outside my price range...

 

No not at all, $660 is still a good price and if you're only aiming for sub-$700 then it is a solid choice; the Intel HD Graphics will handle 720p videos fine. It'll also run graphics up to the Valve Source engine (on medium settings) fine too, but nothing beyond that.

 

ok that's reassuring, thanks. could you suggest any other similar models around this price point that would be worth checking out?

 

Asus u35 line and samsung both have 13" lines that are quite nice and probably better keyboards. If the 3820tg didn't have the powerful graphics card, there would be little reason to buy it over other brands, as the build quality isn't as solid as Asus, Samsung, or Lenovo.

 

Acer is still the cheapest laptop in this price range and that IMO is the best reason why it is one of the best buys.

Again built quality is subjective.

 

as far as other asus models, the options are either the u31 i linked to earlier, or this one...

U30Jc: ‰¿Ši.com - ASUS U30Jc U30Jc-QX075V ƒXƒyƒbƒN

...which does indeed feature discrete graphics, as well as a DVD drive...alas, it's also over $200 more expensive. the japanese market doesn't get the same configurations as the rest of the world, it would seem.

 

bump: how about the new HP dm1?

or there is this UL20 model asus, which has a significantly slower processor but (apparently?) quite a bit more graphics power: ‰¿Ši.com - ASUS UL20A UL20A-2X123BK ƒXƒyƒbƒN
almost exactly the same price as the 3820.

at this point, multitasking and web usage are more important to me than gaming ability. which of the models mentioned so far would be the best option for that?

 

It uses Intel 4500MHD Graphics < Intel HD Graphics hence the TimelineX is still more powerful.
The HP DM1 uses low end APU which is way low end comparable with Atom Dual Core Netbooks.

 

I could probably get one of these asus u30's sent over to japan for only a little more than the 3820 we've been discussing:

ASUS U30JC-B1 13.3-Inch Laptop - Silver:Amazon:Computer & Accessories

How do these two models compare? Seems to me like the asus is ahead on ram and graphics.