We're doing our darnedest to keep our expectations in check, but it looks like the long, painful wait for a halfway potent
netbook may be drawing to a close. With
Windows 7 just months away, laptop makers are finally able to skirt around Microsoft's
Windows XP-netbook limitations in preparation for a better, more refined OS. The just-leaked Aspire Timeline 1810T, for example, shares the same chassis as the underpowered
Aspire One 751, though the innards are similar to those found in the
Timeline series. We're talking an 11.6-inch display (1,366 x 768 resolution), Intel's 1.4GHz ULV SU3500 processor, GMA 4500MHD graphics, hardware accelerated decoding of HD video, up to 4GB of RAM, an HDMI socket, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, optional 3G / Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and an 8-hour battery. Naturally, this one is slated to ship with Vista Home Premium, but that
free upgrade to Win7 makes said pill entirely easier to swallow. C'mon
Acer -- dish out the price and release date, won'tcha?
posted Jul 7th 2009 9:01AM
Looks awesome. Now if the price is right then I'm sold!
Price is:
399.99 with an atom Z520 and 2GB of RAM and a 250GB HD
379.99 with an atom Z520 and 1GB of RAM and a 160GB HD
Both available in red, white, black and blue on July 19th at best buy
oops wrong spec sheet. I posted info on the newer 751's. Sorry!
@FNG
Did you read the post?
Whoops, your second reply showed up right as I posted. It's all good. :)
@FNG: Please read the article.
wow, thanks for the advice on reading the article. Now that I have the correct spec sheet in front of me with the release dates and prices I think I'll just keep them to myself. I was just trying to help my fellow geeks...
Aw, c'mon FNG, don't wreck it for the rest of us thanks to other people feeling the need to be the hat over an ass today.
If he had anything relevant he would have posted it. FNG, nice try. but Fail! :)
The 13" Timeline starts around $600. If this comes in at the same price or less, and is a half pound lighter, it might just tempt me away from my Aspire One.
I still haven't seen any benchmarks comparing CULV to Atom. I'm sure that CULV is the better performer, perhaps with slighty higher power requirements, but I'd love to see some specifics.
FNG has took a huff :D hilarious
At mike just compare the Core 2 Solo in the base Acer Timeline to lets say any netbook with the N270/2780 atom.
13in or 14in model.
I don't like acer's anymore, my last two have been shit.
I'm so glad Acer is doing this because soon Asus will follow and I can buy an Eee pc that rocks!
Why not make a new chassis for it? If it had a more solid design and the price was decent I might be interested, but the old chassis was very cheap.
Exactly, the old chassis was very cheap...er, inexpensive. By reusing the same chassis, acer can keep the cost down and hopefully give us a reasonable price on his netbook. (hopefully).
Finally a decent netbook. This may be my next one if the price is right. My current 17" lappy is more like a frying pan than a laptop now a days ... man that thing gets hot!
mine too, once had to use bucket of ice under it to cool it, I forgot my coller...
11.6" .... why are we even calling this a netbook anymore ??? Its not even running Atom....
The 10" netbooks have fairly large bezels (i have a 1000he that im really enjoying) so there is room for the screen to grow without the netbook getting larger. I think the Ideal netbook would be one where the keyboard is just big enough to be as functional as a regular one like on the 1000he, the processor and chipset is powerful enough to handle surfing with multiple windows and tabs without slowing and playing up to 1080p video yet also consume as little power as the N270/280 or less, and have a battery life that is realistically 8 hours or more. Being 2.5lbs and under an inch thick would also be great (although the 1000he is chunky, I find those attributes don't detract much from its portability).
oh yea, under $400 is also a must for netbooks today. Basically 60-70% of what a cheaper notebook is being sold for would be the sweet spot You can sometimes find a full featured notebook for that price but the portability and battery life are other big draws if you want a netbook over a cheap laptop.
Yah.. has a tiny bezel. Looks nice. Might be tempting for a Hackintosh...
Those Timelines are interesting. Cheap, well made, last forever on battery, look nice, great LCDs (LED, HD). The only drawback seems to be the ULV processor at 1.4GHz but I wonder if it really makes that much difference for things that most people do with their computers.
I really don't get it. Why do people care what it's called??? They can call it a joybook or an anybook and I wouldn't care. Only the specs, size and weight matters.
I agree.. its just a name. I think the term netbook is a shortcut for people to describe a very small laptop that is cheaper because it doesnt have the power to do much gaming or video editing and has a smaller screen for portability. And with windows 7 coming soon, people wont have to be bound by what MS allows XP to be on and cheap net/notebooks will really take off. I think the sub $500 laptop will really skyrocket this upcoming year.
The size bump from 10.1 to 11.6 is negligible. The larger display will hardly affect the actual dimensions of the laptop. What really matters is the resolution increase. I'll take an extra 1/4 inch in physical dimensions in exchange for 40% more pixels.
Looks like netbooks are the new basic notebooks.. since there getting to be more capable of more then just "Net"
Also i have a brand new $1400 VAIO with a bluray burner that i would really think about selling for that :)
As Microsoft will not give away a cheap crippled XP for this thing, it will be much pricier than neccessary if sold as a mere "barebone" without OS. But then its sales would probably be rather weak. If the 1810T would come out with the promised 3G/UMTS modem built in soon, this thing would be indeed the first real netbook for me. But probably that version will come much much later and much much more expensive. And a matte display probably will not come at all, given the current glossy rage.
Finally another netbook.
If this is priced like a netbook then I would definitely consider it for a second PC. With specs like that though, this will definitely be cannibalising low-end laptop sales.
yeaaaa since when did Netbooks have 4gb of ram?
this is not a netbook
And we still can't get past integrated graphics....
At least this one can reasonably decode HD video. Its better than the 950's all the others are plagued with.
I still would prefer a 93/9400 but with 8 hours battery life, I could live without it.
For 7-8 hours of battery life, you get integrated graphics. Even in a kickass ThinkPad X200s you get integrated graphics.
Stay tuned for systems with the Nvidia Ion for higher-end graphics in netbook-type systems, but the battery life will probably be awful.
I don't mind with integrated graphics as long the chip is decent for normal video purposes. The big advantage compared to a dedicated graphics card is the minimal power consumption. I would not like to see a 2 hour livetime only to be able to play advanced games on machines like this, cooling would be another problem, noise therefore too. Then even the CPU woud be another bottle neck. For normal duties and half a dozen open tasks it should be running at least 4 to 6 hours. And this without adding too much weight in form an oversize battery. So this still looks as the nwe speet spot for the category light, not too expensive and still capable for not only basic tasks. Especially as on ly this form factor allows for a really decant keyboard and a display with 786 to 800 pixel height. Who needs more?
How about a 10 inch netbook with the same specs. I mean netbooks are getting larger and become less net and more note. The attraction to netbooks was their size and portability for basic tasks on the run.
Of course Acer could have packed the innards into a netbook case. But putting 1366 x 768 pixels into a 10''-display is not ergonomic anymore, at least for me. And, by the way, those new light 11-Inchers do not come with that much more weight and size compared to a "normal" netbook anyway.
And getting rid og that pesty 1Gig barrier is another bonus (even if we obviously have to pay for that, but better then fumbling to upgrade a netbook crippled by Microsoft).
12" Screen, 4GB RAM, non-Atom Processor, Vista Premium.
I'm totally at a loss for why you guys are calling this thing a netbook. While we're at it, why not check out the new Macbook Pro $2500 17" netbooks?
I'll call it a netbook.
Sure, it's a little bigger, and the specs don't totally suck, but that is what needs to change about netbooks. Just being little and having an Atom processor shouldn't be the defining characteristics. I feel like this is the natural progression.
For me, the perfect netbook is about 12 inches, with a decent processor and hardware video decoding. Which is pretty much what this is.
Don't live in the past. Who cares what MS calls a netbook. I say let the genre evolve like it will anyway. It needs it.
"why not check out the new Macbook Pro $2500 17" netbooks?"
Because this thing will be priced at a fraction, propably between the 751 and the Timeline 3810T. Even the 3810T and 4810T are not even half the price of that indeed very nice Macbook Pro.
Sir,
have you ever heard of sarcasm?
Call me crazy...but I could have swore I saw this at Wal-Mart yesterday for $399.
Have you even read the post?
"shares the same chassis as the underpowered Aspire One 751"
...
I think I saw the same one at Fry's for $399 too.
crazy
This is BARELY a netbook, but since it's under 12", and has a low-powered CPU I guess it works.
From a physical size POV, I say this should be the upper limit on the form factor. Maybe there should be a poll?
My Sony Vaio TT, and the similarly spec'd Asus U2 are 11in laptops, also come with a similar Intel cpu, except they are using the C2D instead of the C2S this has.Yet, I don't see anyone call those netbooks. Maybe that has to do with the fact that they cost over $1.4k new, or the fact that when the TZ(previous gen of the TT) came out netbooks were not even around, or when the Asus U2 came out Netbooks were still at 7in.
I guess my point is since this has a combo of 11.6in screen and probably cost $600 calling it a netbook is pushing it. Now ultra-portable sure. The Gateway model with the AMD cpu, and the similar Acer model with Atom can be called a netbook imho because the cost under $425.
the category netbooks is no question of definition power. Who cares what the name of a notebook/laptop/netbook/ultra is when it fits into your bill and your baggage? I think too that for most real road warriors and even couch potatoes 12'' is more ore less the upper limit in size and 1,5 KG in weight. And every price distance to $600 would help very much. Nice machines for more than $1000 are available for long but never were mass sales.
How good would that integrated chipset be for gaming? Keep in mind I'm not expecting to play many newer games, more like Counter Strike: Source and Battlefield 2.
Not brilliant if im honest.
Quite a number of features! Looks many are waiting for its launching. For me, I'm not very particular about the specs because I'm more after of the connectivity. Speed is more important for me since I'm posting for snow removal site. It has become my passion lately, to post articles I find interesting and informative. Just like my snow shovel post, I believe others will be benefited out of it through the information I have gathered.
thank god engadget finally posted an article about yet another netbook. It's been far too long since the last one earlier today and the other one last night. I mean, cheap, underpowered computers running crap OSes are always more newsworthy than the latest developments from major influential tech players like apple, who arguably makes the two most infleuntial products of the decade (iPod and iPhone). Screw the apple articles. VIVA LA NETBOOK!!!!!!!
Oh shut up.
As if there aren't half a dozen daily posts about all things Apple on Engadget, or like a gazillion dedicated Apple kiss-ass blogs out there. Choose any one of them.
And I'm pretty sure that that tag-filtering Engadget offers works just fine with the term "netbook" as well, so if you don't want to see netbook articles, find out how the filtering works and be done with it.
And the award for best "Paul A Chapel Performance In An Unrelated Post" goes to: Greg!
Come on up to the stage and collect your copy of Windows 7 Home Premium you big lug, you.
Ooooooh, shiinyyyy
I don't think this is a netbook anymore...
Apart from size, what makes this a netbook?
@Greg: Sarcasm noted, douchyness accounted for. Please never speak again.
Thanks mr.me2...per your request, i'll be cancelling my user account engadget, effective immediately. Your "me-too" user name is probably quite accurate, considering your choice in operating systems.
thats like a mini notebook. i think anything over 9 inches is too big to be called a netbook.
Exactly. I can even accept the Asus 10" netbooks, but any larger than that and you might as well go small laptop. With the increase in size, comes the increase in price, which is what is taking systems like this out of the netbook category. Marketing is the only thing calling these netbooks because we sure aren't.
there isn't any sort of agreed standard for netbook size and specs, aside from those MS has arbitrarily slapped on. Moving to Vista and later WIn 7 means that even those restrictions will be phased out. As someone before me has said, who cares what it's called, as long as it has the features you want and at a price you can afford? I can see these newer, sub-3lb machines (11.6, 12.1 and maybe 13.3 inch) replacing the 15.6 and 17 inch behemoths that are currently sold for $500-$700 for people looking for portability (students especially) without having to strain their eyes after hours of working like they would on a 9 inch machine. I have a Dell Mini 9, and as great as it is for basic everyday use, working long hours on it is still a chore.
I would disagree about increase in price. Just compare the 11.6in Acer Aspire One or its Gateway AMD cousin to any 10in netbook and you will see that prices are about the same. About $400 for for all of them.
I see your point(s). Not that any standard has been set, but more along the lines of Netbook specs as most people know it when they were first introduced. I had my own machine (Asus 900HA / 8.9' screen) in mind as I read, which I paid $300 for. As I'm looking for the same specs in a better machine such as the Lenovo S12 ($500 / 12") the size increases along with the price. That was was referring to more or less.
Size is important but price is as well. I think that when these netbooks go north of $400, they really don't become worth it anymore. They just become another laptop. An underpowered laptop at that.
I was kind of hoping that as time went on these netbooks would get cheaper rather then more expensive. I was hoping that by now we'd start seeing $149-199 netbooks. But instead we're seeing $400-600 netbooks with larger screens and more bells and whistles. We might as well just call them laptops.
I think the whole industry is taking us for a ride. Soon the only thing you'll be able to find for under $800 is a "netbook" with an underpowered CPU and a small 12" screen.
Don't get hung up on names - there are notebooks from $300 - $3000, some are small, some are cheap, some are large, who cares if it's a netbook or a subnotebook, it has a certain size, weight, processor speed, and price.
The name netbook was good when cheap subnotebooks were a total novelty - they were cheaper than any other notebooks, and smaller too. But that's no longer the case, you can get a heavy 15" notebook for $400 and a light netbook for $600. The category has been absorbed into the general notebook category.
@nikster
While I agree with you, that's also where I think things begin to get a little scary. Basically they started with these "netbooks" at around $300 and over time they've added slightly bigger screens and a few more bells and whistles. I wouldn't be surprised if they started releasing 15" "netbooks" starting at $600 running an Atom CPU.
That's what I'm really worried about. The industry pulling all the powerful/inexpensive laptops and replacing them with underpowered "netbooks" for the same price.
Even if it is 'underpowered', newer platforms like the INtel SU2700 and SU3500 are rapidly raising the performance bar (esp. compared to Atom) while reducing power usage. Improvements in battery life are important for consumers like me. Don't forget about the weight savings on small machines like this. I'd rather have a $500 netbook with these specs, knowing that I'm almost never going to play newer games on it, than a better-specced netbook with an unncessarily large 15.6 inch screen, crap battery life, and a starting weight of 5 lbs, at the same price.
hardware accelerated decoding of HD video
sweet!!!
any1 have more info on this? Is it the new broadcomm HD decoder chips they threw into this baby?
on teh GMA4500Hd
A new feature of the GMA chip, are the integrated HD video-decoding functions. The GM45 is able to decode HD-videos in the formats AVC, VC-2, and MPEG-2 to help the CPU. This way a Blu-Ray playback should also be possible with a low end CPU (only with the 533 MHz clocked version in the GM45 and GS45).
doesnt say anything about x.264 and Mpeg 4
AVC is another name for H.264, and MPEG4 isn't a single video codec at all, rather the basis of a group of codecs, among others DivX, Xvid (MPEG4 Part 2), H264 (MPEG4 Part 10)...
Well, I just purchased Gateway's netbook with an AMD processor and ATI X1270 gpu. My only complaint is the 4.5 hour battery life with real world usage. I would have returned that today had Acer released an actual launch date and price but, since they aren't doing that, I guess I will keep my Gateway netbook.
For all intensive purposes, these are netbooks since they can do little more than surf the internet. Sure, some of them can play HD videos and you can use them for office productivity (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Sub-notebook, mini-notebook, blah blah blah. They are netbooks.
I agree the Gateway looks good (don't know why we haven't seen that here...or maybe I just missed it) and think anything with an 11.6" screen and decent processor is going to sacrifice battery life. I can wait until I see the Acer release price and date before I buy the GW machine, though.
How do you like that Gateway? It's been tempting me all week. I was thinking of picking one up after reading that it will do 720p but will probably wait to see what the price is on this Acer.
I like nearly everything about the Gateway netbook. The battery life and 0.3MP camera are my only complaints. I haven't had any issues playing back 720p mpeg-4 AVC, divx, xvid, WMV VC-1, or mpeg-2 content. I haven't tried 1080p but I doubt that it would work.
Eh, I think I will just keep the Gateway as I have a feeling that this not-a-netbook netbook will cost around $600 just like HP's dv2 media not-a-netbook netbook. That is just too much for a companion PC.
Get the extended battery for it that protrudes a little?
That battery life is with the provided 6 cell battery that protrudes out of the back just a little bit. It isn't bad, like the 9 cell Acer Aspire One, but it isn't as sleek as other netbooks with flush 6 cell batteries. It still fits snugly in the slipcase I have for a 12" netbook. I would gladly purchase a 9 cell battery if it meant getting a 6-7 hour battery life. My main complaint about the 4-4.5 hours of operation is that I have a 4 year old Toshiba Satellite tablet PC. It uses a high capacity 6 cell battery (that Toshiba just replaced for free) and can easily get 4 hours of real world usage (screen at 50% with wi-fi on), 5 hours if I use just the screen and turn off the optical drive. I wanted to get a netbook that could go all day without needing recharging.
Then again, the Gateway netbook runs circles around my tablet PC so I guess I can't really complain.
Cool! I cant wait until they make netbooks with larger screens like 15 inches.. then maybe dual core and bigger hard drives.. then dvd/blueray players and burners... then mayyyyybe a 17 inch screen fantastic!
: /
Is is my imagination or are netbooks and notebooks almost the same thing now... new classes.... those WITH optical drive and those WITHOUT an optical drive...
I agree with AJ, anything over 9 inches or 10 (ooer) at the utmost is not a netbook!
I am not at all jealous sitting here with my diddy little 1st gen eeepc 701
all the way ladies
Man, they should've called this the "1D10T"
this isn't a netbok. remember the article a while ago with the lines being blurred between netbooks and laptops? I mean, for god's sake! It has 4GB of RAM and a GPU that is normally found in a low-end 15.4". the only thing that makes it a netbook is that it has an atom processor.
"With Windows 7 just months away, laptop makers are finally able to skirt around Microsoft's Windows XP-netbook limitations in preparation for a better, more refined OS."
wait.... what?
Ubuntu says hi.
I had the HP 1000 MI netbook with custom HP edition Ubuntu(base on 8.04) and I found the OS needs some work around the edges, and few other areas to become a viable contender for the consumer market.
Looks sweet, I've considered a AO751 but this is much more desirable.
One downside with the AO751 chassis is that the 6-cell battery (which I assume will be used with the Timeline version) protrudes out the back of the case in an ugly way. I wouldn't mind a slightly larger case as long as the battery is flush.
This is exactly the type of netbook that I was looking for. The size is perfect and it has good hardware to go along with it.
i want a thin and light with intergrated graphics but can companies stop using the 4500mhd already? it sucks because it can even stream 720p flash video smoothly. either use the 9400 or force intel to make a new intergrated graphics chipset already. there's also the slim chance that ati/amd might come out with something but that seems doubtful.
-The 8-hour battery life mentioned refers to a low-power mode where the screen intensity is dimmed down. If you don't select this mode we're talking approx 4 hours
- I don't understand why the timeline series doesn't offer a SSD option....
- Why not offer XP straight up? Plenty of other manufactuerers have managed it on larger laptops. Vista on these machines is a nightmare (I tried and switched to Windows 7 but would have preferred XP)
The 13" Timeline gets 8 hours on normal use, why would this be any different?
I bought a Dell mini 9 because the original 9inch Acer Aspire One also didn't come with an SSD (the ones in the shops, anyway). Anyway, aside from the no-moving-parts/lower-fail-rates of SSDs, there isn't much benefit to getting one over getting a HDD. Tom's Hardware did a comparison of HDDs and SSDs about a year ago, and showed that HDD's are often better performing than top-of-the-line SSDs (this may have changed slightly now), and SSD's don't even consume less power than HDDs, which is what I initially assumed. Still, yeah, it's weird that they don't even have the option to order an SSD edition.
Get rid of the Intel graphics PLEASE!
I'm not even sure if I would qualify this as a netbook, more like a low-end laptop. Features and abilities are too great and the 11.6" screen is wavering on losing the amount of portability people want from a netbook. Plus its shipping with Vista...no netbook ships with Vista, so far its only been XP or Linux. It doesn't qualify as a ULPC so IMO its not really a netbook anymore.
http://yahoo.shoptoit.ca/shop/product--catId_1001324__locale_en__productId_7802735.html
Price: from $850.28
That's the 15" 5810T. This article is about the 11" 1810T.
With an 11.6 inch screen and hardware accelerated HD decoding, it'll be good for a lot more than just the internet. That means it's not a NETbook.
That's the 15" 5810T. This article is about the 11" 1810T.
If we can get a decent "sub-notebook" that's 11" and lower,all the better...Atom,integrated Intel graphics' "solutions" and power consumption be damned.Because that will be small and handy enough for any "to go" reqs and I don't mind lugging a spare batt.It'll be nice if I can have a ten incher that won't chug down when I throw some middle end PC game at it.
Here's hoping for that AMD RS880 rumor to come true.
That's why I call it a *bridgebook*. It's more powerful than the Aspire One (which it will replace in the US); however, it uses the Aspire One's chassis (but on the inside, other than the screen, it's closer to the Timeline 3810). In fact, it's a serious threat to a lot of basic desktops (if you can connect a display/keyboard/mouse, it could actually replace them altogether) and notebooks (despite the small screen and keyboard) not to mention other netbooks (such as the HP mini 110/Compaq 1040DX netbook twins and the MSI Wind/ASUS Eee).
Do NOT want the GMA 4500 crap. It's disgusting. Every other spec here looks good, except that shitty GPU. 4gb of RAM? Do want, however.
I would love to see this for around $500 without an OS. (It should be doable)