Acer's 11.6-inch Aspire Timeline 1810T: a netbook we can finally embrace?

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?

[Ethos @ Jul 7th 2009 9:04AM]

Looks awesome. Now if the price is right then I'm sold!

[FNG @ Jul 7th 2009 9:55AM]

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

[FNG @ Jul 7th 2009 10:00AM]

oops wrong spec sheet. I posted info on the newer 751's. Sorry!

[Rollins @ Jul 7th 2009 10:02AM]

@FNG

Did you read the post?

[Rollins @ Jul 7th 2009 10:03AM]

Whoops, your second reply showed up right as I posted. It's all good. :)

[OneLove @ Jul 7th 2009 10:03AM]

@FNG: Please read the article.

[FNG @ Jul 7th 2009 10:17AM]

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...

[Justin @ Jul 7th 2009 10:36AM]

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.

[OneLove @ Jul 7th 2009 10:43AM]

If he had anything relevant he would have posted it. FNG, nice try. but Fail! :)

[Mike Cerm @ Jul 7th 2009 11:05AM]

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.

[loci @ Jul 7th 2009 11:50AM]

FNG has took a huff :D hilarious

[Al @ Jul 7th 2009 12:58PM]

At mike just compare the Core 2 Solo in the base Acer Timeline to lets say any netbook with the N270/2780 atom.

[Al @ Jul 7th 2009 1:01PM]

13in or 14in model.

[ratchetnclank @ Jul 7th 2009 9:08AM]

I don't like acer's anymore, my last two have been shit.

[M. @ Jul 7th 2009 9:11AM]

I'm so glad Acer is doing this because soon Asus will follow and I can buy an Eee pc that rocks!

[SlaterGS @ Jul 7th 2009 9:12AM]

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.

[OneLove @ Jul 7th 2009 9:59AM]

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).

[AlexNC @ Jul 7th 2009 10:52AM]

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!

[Dking @ Jul 7th 2009 10:40AM]

mine too, once had to use bucket of ice under it to cool it, I forgot my coller...

[~:Dhruv:~ @ Jul 7th 2009 9:17AM]

11.6" .... why are we even calling this a netbook anymore ??? Its not even running Atom....

[dude @ Jul 7th 2009 10:38AM]

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).

[dude @ Jul 7th 2009 10:47AM]

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.

[nikster @ Jul 7th 2009 11:24AM]

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.

[WickedEast @ Jul 7th 2009 11:42AM]

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.

[dude @ Jul 7th 2009 12:01PM]

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.

[Chip @ Jul 7th 2009 1:50PM]

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.

[Gabriel @ Jul 7th 2009 9:14AM]

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 :)

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:15AM]

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.

[Alex @ Jul 7th 2009 9:15AM]

Finally another netbook.

[jakem @ Jul 7th 2009 9:15AM]

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.

[216 @ Jul 7th 2009 9:19AM]

yeaaaa since when did Netbooks have 4gb of ram?

[AlCabone @ Jul 7th 2009 10:20AM]

this is not a netbook

[Conceyted @ Jul 7th 2009 9:20AM]

And we still can't get past integrated graphics....

[Ruben @ Jul 7th 2009 9:43AM]

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.

[AN @ Jul 26th 2009 3:08AM]

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.

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:29AM]

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?

[don @ Jul 7th 2009 9:31AM]

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.

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:38AM]

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.

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:32AM]

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).

[chefgon_ign @ Jul 7th 2009 9:32AM]

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?

[windblownmonkey @ Jul 7th 2009 10:00AM]

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.

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:41AM]

"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.

[hiroo @ Jul 7th 2009 10:54AM]

Sir,

have you ever heard of sarcasm?

[shawn.vanhoose @ Jul 7th 2009 9:47AM]

Call me crazy...but I could have swore I saw this at Wal-Mart yesterday for $399.

[L @ Jul 7th 2009 9:55AM]

Have you even read the post?

"shares the same chassis as the underpowered Aspire One 751"

...

[Abe @ Jul 7th 2009 11:26AM]

I think I saw the same one at Fry's for $399 too.

[youngf0x @ Jul 27th 2009 3:05PM]

crazy

[Alan Strangis @ Jul 7th 2009 9:48AM]

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?

[Al @ Jul 7th 2009 9:27PM]

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.

[Albert Voss @ Jul 7th 2009 9:55AM]

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.