Review: Acer Aspire Timeline keeps on giving

Acer's Aspire Timeline 4810T managed to last for a staggering 8hrs 52m on battery alone.

Acer's latest laptop range has hit the shelves with the "Timeline" brand with Acer making 13, 14, and 15-inch models available. The Timeline range are slick-looking beasties, and manage to pull off a great balance between performance, practicality and that all important battery life.

Look and feel

Where most notebook manufacturers are engaged in a lemming-like headlong rush to bring glossy and shiny goodies to market, Acer has sensibly chosen a slick brushed gun metal grey anodised lid and matte body.

Unlike similarly specc'd shiny siblings from other manufacturers, the Aspire 4810T isn't a fingerprint magnet, yet still manages to tick all the right boxes in the looks department. With a waistline only 1.7cm thick and weighing just two kilos, the Aspire 4810T also feels sufficiently light enough to have the makings of a chiropractor free travel companion.

Connectivity

You'd be forgiven for thinking the 4810T's slim waistline would translate into a minimalist spec - however Acer has managed to cram an optical drive and a slew of connectivity options into the 4810T.

Two USB ports' are located case's left side plus another on its right. A card reader has also been included on the front (which is ideal for transferring digital photos), further adding to the 4810T's travel credentials.

Another nifty addition is an HDMI port which makes connecting the 4810T to a flat panel/projector for viewing DVDs or giving presentations a complete doddle.

On the networking front, the 4810 also sports Gigabit LAN connectivity in addition to 802.11 (draft n) wireless support, which makes transferring chunky files or streaming HD content a do-able proposition. Add in the usual headphone and microphone jacks and you'd be hard pressed to complain about a lack of connectivity options.

Acer's gnomes have been extra busy on the keyboard front, having completely re-thought how the Aspire's keyboards should look and feel. The traditional keyboards of previous Aspire notebooks is long gone and has been replaced with an absolutely flat set of keys that bear more than a passing resemblance to the layout of a Macbook or Viao.

Acer has also opted not to pepper the top panel above the keyboard with screeds of rarely-used function keys, instead opting for a touch sensitive panel for a small number of functions (enabling wireless, doing backups and activating the 4810T's power-save function).

Display

The 4810T's 16:9 14-inch display offers 1366x768 pixels of peeper pleasing goodness which makes it ideal for extended on-lap movie viewing and thanks to LED backlighting also manages to be exceptionally bright whilst achieving the seemingly impossible feat of also being theoretically more energy efficient compared to similar conventional CFL-backlit LCD displays. A reflective coating also ensures vivid colours and passable contrast levels.

Using the 4810T outdoors however did reveal one shortcoming with Acer's choice of a glossy display. Whilst helping brightness and contrast levels, the glossy finish does add to glare and annoying reflections outdoors or in situations where there is a bright light source behind the notebook user. This said, the 4810T's screen did deliver great viewing angles.

Performance

Perhaps the biggest selling point of Acer's Timeline range and its favourite party trick is its extreme battery life. Using an energy-efficient Core 2 SU Intel CPU and clever power-saving features such as powering down USB ports and optical drives allows the 4810T to wring every last second of life possible out of the 4810T's battery.

With light use, it ran for a positively boggling 8 hours and 52 minutes – a full working day or even a flight to Singapore. Even with heavy use (e.g. Wi-Fi enabled, the screen at max brightness and a CPU benchmark giving the Core2 SU CPU a workout), the 4810T ran for an impressive 3 hours and 45 minutes. For DVD viewing, I managed just under four and a half hours before it finally gave up the ghost. This is impressive stuff, and is normally the preserve of ultra low power ultra portable notebooks not bad for a full sized, fully specc'd 14" laptop.

Fantastic battery life however, comes at the expense of overall performance, with the 4810T's low-voltage processor clocks in at just 1.4GHz, but runs on mere fumes with a maximum Thermal design power requirement of only 10W which translates into minimal cooling and way less lap scorch than other comparable notebook specc'd with a less power efficient CPU. Add 4Gb of RAM and a relatively roomy 320GB hard disk into the pot and you're good to go.

The 4810T's graphics are supplied courtesy of an integrated Intel GMA 4500M HD graphics silicon. Whilst fine for most productivity tasks and simple multimedia chores, this choice all but precludes the most basic games unless they can be run at lower detail settings. If you're a gamer, you'll probably want to look elsewhere, but for everyone else, the 4810T could be just what the doctor ordred.

Verdict

Acer are onto a real winner with their new Timeline series with the 4810T. Slick design combined with a reasonable spec and awesome battery life to make it a great all-rounder. The 4810T is an ideal choice for travellers wanting office and multimedia on the move whilst minimising shoulder strain or even someone considering a netbook but wanting the benefits of a full-sized, full spec notebook. The final word? Acer's Aspire 4810T is well worth checking out.

Acer's Aspire 4810T
RRP: $1999.00

Spec
Size: 338 x 240 x 29mm (WDH)
Weight: 1.95kg
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 4Gb DDR3
Screen: 14.0" (1,366x768)
Graphics: Intel GMA 4500
HDD:320GB
Optical: DVD writer
Networking: 10/100/1000Mpbs Ethernet, 802.11a, b, g, draft-n