Acer Aspire Timeline 5810T-944G32MN

...consideration.

The Acer 5810T seemed too good to be true and was originally ruled out when it didn't appear to have an optical drive - this is incorrect! The laptop DOES have a DVD/CD drive despite it's slim design and extended battery life.

Overall I'm really pleased with this laptop. It's really slim at one inch when closed and light at 1.6 kg, which is important as I haul it around a lot. The performance is good, although ...
...the graphics card from the Acer website, and occasional slow performance when using battery power alone - I think this is understandable and a reasonable trade-off for the extended battery life. There is a handy touch button to turn the wireless card on and off, but it only seems to respond once in about 8 touches!

In summary this is a great machine which performs well in everything I need it to do for my work. The design is neat and ... more

This laptop was bought to replace a much more expensive Sony Vaio which had died of old age. I didn't want to spend as much as the Sony had cost but still wanted some key features. I wanted the new laptop to be - thin and light, big hard drive, lots of RAM, reliable (obviously). Also I'm a web developer and I travel a lot in my campervan and need to be able to work on the laptop so battery life was an important consideration.

The Acer 5810T seemed too good to be true and was originally ruled out when it didn't appear to have an optical drive - this is incorrect! The laptop DOES have a DVD/CD drive despite it's slim design and extended battery life.

Overall I'm really pleased with this laptop. It's really slim at one inch when closed and light at 1.6 kg, which is important as I haul it around a lot. The performance is good, although better when on high performance setting and plugged in. It came with Vista which I have got used to more quickly than i expected to and other pre-loaded software is adequate, although I removed a fair few 'bloatware' unnecessary programmes.

The Energy-saving feature is one that actually works! I used the laptop on battery for almost seven hours while installing software and generally working it really hard. Cleverly, the optical drive is powered down unless you're actually using it, along with other components that come to life only when you need them. I've never seen a laptop that can run for that long on battery alone and it will make a real difference to my power consumption when I'm travelling!

The only issues I have had were daily freezes, which I have resolved by installing a new driver for the graphics card from the Acer website, and occasional slow performance when using battery power alone - I think this is understandable and a reasonable trade-off for the extended battery life. There is a handy touch button to turn the wireless card on and off, but it only seems to respond once in about 8 touches!

In summary this is a great machine which performs well in everything I need it to do for my work. The design is neat and minimalist - it looks more expensive than it is! The processors could be quicker, but I can spare a few seconds in exchange for up to seven hours work without mains power.  

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