Acer Timeline 8000 series arrives at Office Depot
By Nilay Patel 
posted August 1st 2009 9:55PM
posted August 1st 2009 9:55PM
[Thanks, Mike]
posted August 1st 2009 9:55PM
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i am VERY interested in C2D models
Fry's here in Dallas has numerous versions of this model. They're very sleek and lightweight.
It is actually on sale right now on office depot, $549.99 till 8/08/2009. I'm interested in this little device.
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/410364/Acer-AS4810-8480-14-Widescreen-Notebook/
i saw that monday at the staples near me. went home to google it and couldn't find squat, this explains everything...
This isn't anything special or new for that matter. Just release one with an ATI graphics card. Trust me Acer, there is a market for it besides Europe and Australia.
Kudos to Acer for coming out with a totally new and different class of machine.
This _is_ what normal people want in 2009 - it's cheap, it's light, it lasts ages on battery, it's not ugly, it's slim, and the Core 2 Solo is more than enough for your Word, Email, and Firefox, and MSN messenger. That's what non-geeks and non-gamers do with their computers, and it handles it all.
As a Mac user, I am kind of envious - I want to have a Mac like that. 1.4GHz C2S would be enough on Mac OS X as well, 4GB RAM and 320GB HD are what matters. $600? Oh yes. As of now, I am looking for a laptop for the wife, and this would be perfect. If it ran OS X. As it is I am looking at an underpowered, kinda heavy, kinda short on battery MacBook for $999. It doesn't compare. Yes the MacBook is a lot faster, but my wife doesn't need that.
Acer's hit a sweet spot on the hardware here, they'll sell like hotcakes.
They're supposed to be CULV laptops, 1.4 GHz is the speed that is used for thin-and-light laptops or PCs people want to do limited things with. But the memory is DDR3-1066, so there's where the real strenght comes from.
If it had that ATI graphics card I would buy it right now!
I picked up the older 4810TZ (I believe was the model number). The ULV processor didn't feel underpowered at all. The battery life, slim line form factor, screen, HDMI output, and DVD drive all made this a perfect buy for me. In fact, the key area I felt was lacking was the graphics chipset (Intel G45). Beyond this, the key gripe I had was the keyboard. The track pad is centered with the screen, but the keyboard is not - it is shifted about a key and a half to the left of center (not sure if this is the case on the largest model, but was certainly the case on the 13.3 and 14.0" models). The result is that my palm rested on the track pad and was very uncomfortable to use without interference. The flat keys were also difficult to get used to. Due to the ergonomics of it, I ended up returning this laptop - for reasons that had nothing to do with battery life or the processor =)
a faster 1.8ghz version of the laptop has been available at staples for almost a month now, and it was on sale for $549 this past week. How is this news?
Not bad compared to some other offerings.
It's quite obvious why it has 8 hours of battery life...to compensate for the 4times more load times you'll have using Vista and any other modern day app using a fricken Core 2 Solo 1.4GHz!!!
Have you actually used this product you're criticizing or are you just trying to be opposite guy? Many in this post own the 4810t including myself and get great performance from that "meager" processor. I don't wait 3x longer to load engadget on my 4810 compared to my MacBook Pro, why do I need that much power when it's not required for the things I'm doing on the laptop? 8+ hours battery and great performance on a slim laptop like this is a pretty nice offering and obviously a lot of people think it's a great deal. You can't find one anywhere at Staples now.
Idiot. i just got my acer timeline 4810 and it works great
Come on Acer, bring the 1810T to the US already.
It has been on sale at Radioshack for a bit now.
Why office depot?
We've had this laptop at Radioshack for over a week now, and its $579 normal price. Office Depot sucks.
I was considering the timelines but after spending some time on Acer's maze-like, uninformative website I became convinced this company can't possibly get something more complicated like building a good laptop right. Their contact links (no contact forms!) bounce, and when I got a comment through they sent me back links to product info that didn't work.
Sure, maybe their genius stars work in laptop engineering and they left the web work to the shortbusers but... it's enough to make me avoid them at least until enough very positive reviews come in on build quality, reliability and service on these timelines.
BTW atom < core solo < core 2 solo < core 2 duo the core 2 solo are quite serviceable, but not ideal for serious graphics work and the like.
i'm confused. is this really part of the acer timeline 8000 series? someone made the point that if it is the model number will be AS8XXX which makes sense.
If you read the article you can notice that the model number is posted, AS4810T-8480. AS4810T is the model of the laptop and the 8480 is the series.
i saw this same laptop at sams club for $549 or something like that. didnt take a good look at it though but im pretty sure it had the same specs and was of the 8000 series
seriously why are some of you people even commenting on a tech site when you know absolutely nothing about computers? the Core2Solo are relatively new processors that were released with the other ConsumerUltraLowVoltage (CULV) processors. Core2Solo has one core but uses Core2 technology. Core2Duo uses Core2 technology and has two cores and so on. I guess intel could have made it easier by just doing like amd and name their processors x2, x3, x4. if your confused by intel current naming system then the i5, i7 naming system to come will make absolutely no sense. why are quad cores named i7 and dual cores i5? there's also a dual core CULV, which was offered in a more expensive models of the timeline series. the 8000 series seems like a pretty good deal. what i'm wondering is if the keyboard feels more solid then the previous generation. the last article on the 8000 series said that some versions would come with dedicated graphics, i'll be waiting for those models. i'm also glad that acer decide to include two individual keys on touchpad instead of the rocking one button.
Yep it's for 550. I saw one yesterday at Staples. Man that thing is solid! Not one part of that laptop feels cheap. I am very surprised with Acer and the build quality of there TLs.
There really seems to be a bizarre amount of confusion here, and it all comes down to confusing naming and poor fact checking.
The laptop shown here (the Acer Aspire AS8410T-8480) is _NOT_ part of the "new 8000 series" of Timeline laptops mentioned in the previous linked article. Instead, it is just another configuration of the 14" Timeline laptop and has been on sale for a while.
The new "8000 series" Timeline laptops the previous article talks about are actually part of the TravelMate line, not Aspire. They share much of the same styling and hardware as the current Timeline series (including the "8+ hour" battery life), but they are marginally thinner and feature a fingerprint reader in the center of the two mouse buttons.
The _actual_ "8000 series" laptops are as follows:
*TravelMate 8471 - 14", either SU9400 or SU3500 processor, 1.16" thick
*TravelMate 8371 - 13", either SU9400 or SU3500 processor, 0.99" thick
You can check out their full specs (in German) here: http://www.acer.de/acer-v2/product_detail.do?slot21e=%01&slot44e_presel=%01&slot11e=%01&slot42e=%01&slot42e_presel=%01&slot22e=%01&slot50e_presel=%24%24NULL%24%24&slot22e_presel=%01&link=oln108e.redirect&slot20e_presel=%01&slot48e_presel=%24%24NULL%24%24&slot44e=%01&slot1e_presel=%01&slot1e=%01&slot20e=%01&slot14e=%01&slot11e_presel=%01&slot43e=%01&CRC=1067519345
Or check out some great close-ups of the 13" one here (again in German): http://www.notebook-treff.de/board/technik-allgemein/erfahrungsberichte/8993-test-acer-travelmate-8371-944g32n
Not to be rude but you are actually also a bit confused and misinformed in facts. This IS the 8000 series "AS4810T-8480"! There is also a 15.6, and 13.3 inch screen also available in the 8000 series of Timeline.
Thanks for your comment, and I appreciate your interest.
I am well aware that this model number ends in a four-digit string of numbers that happens to begin with "8", and you very well may wish to refer to this as some sort of "8000 series". I am simply pointing out that this is NOT the "new 8000 series" that is mentioned in the previously-linked Engadget article. This is what I meant when I said confusing naming.
The 8xxx here refers simply to specific configurations of the currently-existing _Aspire_ Timeline models, namely the ones that use the Intel Core2 Solo SU3500 processor. These 8xxx-model configurations have actually been available for weeks (as is noted by the many earlier posts of people expressing that they've been on shelves for a while now), and are _NOT_ the same as the "new 8000 series" of Timeline models mentioned in the previous article, which is actually an expansion of the Timeline series into the _TravelMate_ lineup, not Aspire.
If you click the link to the previous Engadget article, you will find it is a summary of _this_ article (http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptops/news/2009/07/30/Acer-Outs-Timeline-8000-Series/p1) which describes the "new 8000 series" of Timeline machines that will be available with either a Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Solo processor and either GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics or a dedicated ATI 4330 GPU. If you click the (German) tech-specs links I provided in my previous post, you will see that the image featured in that article is the _exact same image_ as the one featured on the TravelMate 8371 page. If you look closely, you can even read the "TravelMate" branding, but the much more obvious distinguishing characteristic is the finger print reader located between the touchpad buttons.
These 8xxx-series TravelMate laptops are already being unboxed in the european markets, as in the final link provided in my previous post.
Any idea of the power consumption / performance trade off when using the ATI 4330? I.E. how much better battery performance at what cost to battery life?
Can someone advice to me which one is better in thier performance between this Acer Timeline and Gateway NV? Please help me out.