9 responses so far ↓

• 1 Louise

  I have been using the Acer Timeline (14 inch, Aspire 4810TZ-4011) since yesterday evening and so far so good. Here are my first impressions:

  1. The delivery was quick and packaging was good.
  2. The looks of the laptop are fantastic. Love the isolation-type keyboard. The screen hinges could have been more solid but for a lightweight machine appear ok.
  3. The eject button for the CD, various ports, the card reader, are all very suitably positioned.
  4. The colours of the screen are beautiful. There are setup options to adjust those to taste, but I did not need to use them.
  5. The laptop was easy to set up. I loaded the battery for about an hour before starting, perhaps an overkill, and was rewarded with a blue light coming from beneath the touchpad.
  6. Setting up Vista for the first time was much quicker than my last XP setup on a netbook. Feels natural so far.
  7. Soon after startup I was prompted to create recovery disks, and made two DVDs with the system and one with software.
  8. There is (was) a lot of preloaded software. I spent a good deal of time finding out what it does (on Google) and cleaning most of it up.
  9. People who have complained from performance issues maybe should take care to remove the redundant backup software (two or three of those pre-installed?!), the trial antivirus and other FUD nonsense.
  10. I registerted for a FREE copy of Windows 7 for Timeline owners, to be shipped in October (woot!).
  11. Set up Skype (after combating for a while with the firewall settings of Vista), and made a call — the sound is good, the mic is well positioned, the camera works fine, even better after peeling off the protective plastic sheet
  12. Tested a youtube video in HD and it did not play smooth, which was a disappointment.

  Comparing this to my 4y old FS, the Acer Timeline feels about as solid, a lot more silent, cooler, lighter by more than 2 pounds, with 6 times the RAM, 4 times the battery time, and a newer processor — clearly an upgrade in every aspect.

• 2 Vennard

  A very disappointing issue: the Acer screen became fully distored when connect to external digital TV or extra monitor…no video output detected, nothing shown on the external devices; even with proper setting for external devices and proper cables.

  Sound quality is not to par on youtube or other video playback.

  It is a nice notebook if you are a light user and do not need external display devices connected.

• 3 Frederiksen

  I have had this laptop now for 2 days and it has been flawless. It is nice to charge your laptop at night and not have to worry about “where is an outlet?” the next day. The LED screen is rock solid. Loaded up Microsoft Office 2007…no problem.

  I was between the 13.3 and 14 inch models but ended up going with the 14 due to the dvd drive. It’s one of those things that better to have it and not use it than need to use it and not have it. The added weight to me was a non-issue.

  Acer is offering a free upgrade to Windows 7 which is another selling point.

  Cons: None

  Oh yeah…you will find higher priced laptops with “more features” but when you are looking for an outlet, I will be rollin right along.

• 4 Jeffers

  I’ve used this laptop for about 2 days now. I’ve waited for it since they announced the release back in April, the main reason I bought it was because of its size and price. You won’t find another laptop with similar functionality and performance for its price.
  There are couple of things I want to critique:
  - size of the keyboard, Dell’s labtop keyboard are better and the wrist rest area is a little small.
  - The screen cannot fold all the way flat, which I think it’s kinda silly

  But if you’re like me who’s just a simple user who use the laptop to surf the internet and don’t play a lot of games or do anything heavy duty this laptop has plenty of horse power!

• 5 Fanning

  This review relates more to the AS4810T-8480, but as it is not sold on Amazon yet, I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of the problems I am experiencing on that model, as this might impact the entire product line.

  I received my new laptop 4 days ago. Overall it is great, and I’d love to post a positive review here. It looks great from the outside, the 6-8 hours of battery life is a reality (let’s see how long it lasts before the battery worns out), keyboard is nice, etc… Also agree that the built quality is not perfect, but overall it is fine.

  My major concern, is the overall system stability. I am not a heavy user, mostly internet surfing.

  However, in the past 4 days, I have experienced a tremendous number of crashes, maybe 2 to 3 a day, just using normal programs such as Skype, Internet Explorer 8 and MSN Live Messenger… At somepoint, the CPU goes to 100% utilization and the system becomes very slow or totally unresponsive, so I need to do a forced shut down. I thought this was due to Internet Explorer, but experienced the same with Firefox yesterday…

  I just tried to install a USB AT&T 3G key, and despite a successful installation, now I am unable to log into Windows because on the log on screen my cursor and keyboards are none responsive. I have just logged a ticket with their Support Team, let’s see what they come up.

  I have never had some many problems with a new laptop in the past and am considering returning it for a refund.

  Again, I would really like to love this laptop, I think ACER has a great product here, BUT I cannot recommended it at this point, and hope I will be able to update my recommendation very soon.

• 6 Lawler

  I received my “new” Acer computer from Amazon yesterday. The delivery time was the only positive thing I would give this. I turned the machine on and found out that it was registered to another person — something Zhong in Washington, with a password already in there. I called Acer’s technical support (was given the runaround — about 5 different numbers to call, each one referring me to another number), and rude, rude people who I could not understand. (I have nothing against this, but when I asked for a supervisor, he was mysteriously on another call for 10 minutes).

  Finally I did get someone who told me how to reset the computer back to factory conditions (which it should have been, since I bought it “new” supposedly). He said that they may have sent me a refurbished computer by mistake (duh!). So finally that mess was cleared up.

  However, getting onto the internet is a real drag. I mean, a REAL DRAG! It is so slow! I use the same line (Comcast) for all of my computers with no problem, quick, zippy, etc. My daughter has an Asus 10 inch that zips right online. I knew I should have gotten one of those instead! But this Acer is horrible. I dont even give it one star. It doesn’t even deserve star dust.

• 7 Peig

  I tried many times to create DVD back up after first time of run but when I attached external DVD writer (HP Pavilion DV2-1030US 12.1-Inch Laptop)notebook started to “install new hardware” and stopped without completing it, again and again… When i inserted a DVD to it nothing again. Its may be due to low power on USB port of notebook because when I attached the DVD writer to USB HUB finally I got my back up DVD’s(two DVD). In the other hand you can not work with notebook and DVD player or writer in ambulatory status and you have to use a USB HUB attached to power outlet.

• 8 Bishara

  This is the computer I’ve been looking for. The 10.1 inch screen is great; hard disk space is plenty large enough; and the weight is perfect for traveling. I use this for email and surfing the web – which is 95% of what I use a computer for – and it absolutely serves its purpose.

• 9 McWan

  I purchased a smaller version of this netbook from Amazon and it lasted for 3 weeks before the hard drive crashed. Luckily Amazon picked it right up, but then I saw they had THIS model on sale, so I thought I’d give Acer another shot. BAD MISTAKE. It never worked out of the box. After 4 calls to the poor English speaking tech support people, and 6 attempts to reload the software, they finally sent me real CD’s. After an hour with yet another tech support person, it was determined that there was a hardware issue and that I was going to have to return it to the factory for repair…get this: AT MY EXPENSE! I tried explaining to the guy that it’s brand new, why should I have to pay to ship it back to get it repaired? “That is Acer’s policy” I was told. I asked for a supervisor and waited on hold for nearly an hour and gave up. So they wasted at least 5 hours of my time, and two weeks waiting for a response for a netbook that never worked right from the factory. Burn me once, OK…but me twice and I won’t do business with you ever again.

You must log in to post a comment.