Acer Aspire Timeline 1810T

The Aspire Timeline 1810TZ is the latest edition of the Timeline series, which blur the boundaries between netbooks and notebooks.

With an 11.6 inch screen, less than an inch thick, weighing only 1.35 kg it is just as portable as a netbook and a little more comfortable to use.

What I like

The 11.6 inch screen is great quality for the sub £500 market; with HD 1366 x 768 pixel resolution it makes for good viewing and is easily visible from most angles though there’s some glare.

Acer’s “fine tip” keyboard is full size, and the keys are well spaced and easy to touch type rapidly with. The touchpad supports multitouch gestures; circular-motion scrolling, pinch-action zoom and page flip – something not always seen in netbooks.

The rest of the Timeline notebooks normally have an aluminium case, but the 1810TZ has a plastic case. The quality is fine however and the chassis construction feels surprisingly rigid for such a light computer.

The only real extra with this computer is the Dolby®-optimized surround sound system, which promises multi-channel sound through a normal headphone jack.

By the far the best feature of the 1810TZ is the battery life, making use of those low voltage processors, you can get an impressive eight hours of life from it. Combined with the full size keyboard, if you have to do a lot office work on the move it’s a great set up.

What I don’t like

The lack of optical drive keeps it thin as a netbook, but it’s larger than the normal 9 inch screen models, and I’m not convinced that you won’t need an optical drive in this larger form factor.

Summary

Acer’s reputation is for building good quality, reliable, if less than exciting computers. The 1810TZ isn’t going to change this reputation, but it’s not going to harm it either; it’s a no frills trooper of a laptop perfect for working on the move.

Tech Specs

• Intel® Core™2 Solo or Intel® Pentium® processor SU4100
• Windows Vista / Windows 7
• 250Gb hard drive
• Up to 4Gb DDR2 667MHz RAM
• Integrated Graphics
• 11.6 inch, 16:9, 13.66×768p HD Acer CineCrystal™ LED-backlit TFT LCD display
• 1x HDMI, 1x VGA, 3 x USB 2.0, 1x line out, 1x mic port
• 5-in-1 card reader
• Wi-fi and Ethernet connection
• 285 (W) x 204 (D) x 22.1/30 (H) mm
• 1.35kg

Image Credit: nDevilTV