The Acer Timeline X is one of the best laptops around when you are in search of something that adds up the design and performance to the max. There are many laptops with notable high configurations, but they are sized badly or designed with a compromise on the screen, the colors and the compactness. Acer made this device smart enough, with a good configuration, one of the best battery backups and also a perfect design to carry along with style. The X in the TimelineX name denotes for Extreme, which it is and a few changes from the previous Timeline series laptops of Acer have made this device stand far ahead. Lets talk about the different aspects of the Acer TimelineX 4820T laptop -
Design and display
The design is worked on pretty well, with the silver tint around the trackpad that isolates and beautifies the bottom, and the hand rest around it has a metal finish color on the plastic. Rest of the areas too have a black-glossy finish. The TimelineX has a 14-inch HD LED LCD screen with a very flat and thin panel around it, making it compete with the other in the series, like the Dell Adamo and the Macbook Air! The thickness of the whole laptop is just below 1.1 inch, and one of the reasons for this is the battery which isn’t made thick but is long and thin, resting between the screen and the keyboard where the Doly home theater speaker system is on the front side. The 14-inch screen has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, and the picture viewing is sharp and good, but the usage in bright conditions would reduce the quality of image produced.
One of the drawbacks with the screen is the fussy view when viewed from any vertical angle, and this is no change from the previous timeline series laptops. The brushed aluminum design around is surely a good one to make it look quite professional, but not everyone would be happy with screen display. The keyboard is styled like a Macbook Pro, but there is no backlit keys, and also the keys are noisy while typing. Unlike many other laptops, the keys in this TimelineX are spaced apart by a few mm, so that the typing becomes easier and no overlapping while typing can happen.
The left pane of the keyboard panel has a USB port, a HDMI connector port, a port to connect to the projector and the jacks to connect the headset and mic. The right side has 3 USB ports, and the DVD reader/writer and the jack for laptop charger. The TimelineX also has a SD card reader section, just at the base of the left palmrest area. There is a webcam too, above the screen which can record pictures in different resolutions. Just above the keyboard keys, on the right is a DVD eject button and a launch manager key, from where you can set the programs to launch as soon as you press the key.
As with many other laptops, the USB ports next to each other can be a problem to plug in multiple USB connections like the internet hubs which need more space, and so the adjacent USB ports cannot be used.
The Battery and its performance
One of the best features of the Acer TimelineX laptop is the battery performance, which Acer promised to give an 8-hour life on usage but that anyways is dependant on how the laptop is being used. Acer optimized the hard drive and the other internal specifications to make the battery run longer, and the 6-cell Li-ion battery can give at least a 5-hour running time on full performance, with optimal brightness and 3-4 apps running together, and a device connected through USB. When running a video continuously with a brightness of more than 60%, the laptop still gave a 4+ hour running time after a full charge, which is a pretty good battery performance when compared to the other laptops.
The laptop comes with the settings such as ejecting or shutting down the optical drive, and reducing the performance of non-needed apps when the laptop is running on battery, and this thus enhances the battery life. The performance of the battery is totally different on the various modes, like the screen brightness, running of videos, connecting to the internet using Wi-Fi, having bluetooth connections on, connecting to devices through USB ports, running any DVDs in the drive, or playing any mp3 media on high volume. Every given function would influence the battery performance, and the juice can last from 3.5 hours to 9 hours depending on how it is being used.
Operating system and Internal specifications
The Acer TimelineX 4820T laptop comes with the pre-installed Windows 7 Home Premium, and powered with the Intel Core i3-370M processor, running with a processor speed of 2.4GHz, and a 3MB L3 cache. The laptop is powered with the Intel HD graphics. The 2GB RAM and the 500GB Hard Drive can raise a doubt whether the 2GB RAM would be enough to run the graphics and run multiple apps at once, and on checking, it seems to slow down the performance when the usage is not optimized.
For the sound, it isn’t quite effective although the TimelineX carries the name Dolby Home Theater for its speakers. The bass is low, and the sound is scratchy when the volume is increased, especially to the 400% volume using the VLC player. The video and graphics quality is pretty good, with the Intel HD graphics helping to play the high definition videos, but that usually requires more RAM and load on the internal board. Acer hasn’t really compromised stuff to make the battery work better, as except the speakers quality, everything is pretty great and something what a high-class laptop would deliver. But where there is a problem, an alternative is always present. The TimelineX comes with the HDMI output that can help in connection with the larger television screens for better entertainment.
Connectivity
The Acer TimelineX comes with a few good connectivity options, like the 802.11n Wi-Fi and the Gigabit Ethernet for a real fast networking, and the other connectivity options that come along are the Bluetooth, the USB connections and the HDMI port. There are a few shortcuts to toggle the Wi-Fi and bluetooth On/Off.
Final Words
The Acer TimelineX comes in different variants, with the 15.6-inch screen too, and the processor going to Intel Core 1.7 processor, but the one we reviewed has the 1.3 processor and that’s a pretty good one for the performance when the battery life of 8 hours is to be taken advantage of. The design is not a real impressive one, but still a better and professional looking one when compared to many other Acer laptop models, and the other brands of the same level. For the price at around INR 34000, it is a pretty decent laptop but cannot be called a replacement to the standard PCs for usage at offices. It has a good performance, but compromises with the display on different viewing angles. It’s pretty thin, and not that heavy so you can carry it along and use it as a good entertainment + work device at the same time.
Unboxing Video :
Nice review bro, but whats the price tag?
[...] considering the smaller compact size of the Laptops, we don’t see a 1 TB or a 2TB hard drives for Notebook like which are generally in place for external as well as for computer desktop based hard disks. Of [...]
Iam also in search of laptops which give 5 to 8 hours bateery backup.
Nice laptop…i really liked the brushed aluminium design..But, the processor and performance part has to be expanded….
its that vlc will create noise at 400% volume boost..