Updated News » Blog Archive » Acer TimeLineX 4820T 14″ Review

Acer TimeLineX 4820T 14″ Review A rather thin and well built 14″ laptop computer which packs decent all round specifications at an affordable price sounds like a very tempting package indeed for work purposes or the commute, however on the market right now you’d be hard pressed to find one that really stands out from the crowd. Enter Acer, who’s TimeLineX 4820T on top of the specifications above boasts an 8 hour battery life. But is it any good and more importantly, is it worth your hard earned cash? Well lets find out. Review: Design, build The Acer TimeLineX 4820T isn’t a size 0 computer by any means unlike Apple’s <a href="http://www.mybape.com/"><strong>bapes shoes</strong></a> Macbook Air, however its admirable thickness of just 25mm makes it very back friendly indeed. On top of being relatively thin, it’s weight of 2.2kg is also extremely well balanced and makes this laptop just a tad heavier than what we’d like to call an ultra portable. Display wise you are looking at a 14″ LED-backlit displaywith a widescreen resolution of 1366×768 pixels. The display itself is of a high quality, and all movies / text are particularly nice to look at and what’s more the display despite being glossy isn’t as refelctive as some others i’ve come across in the past. Now, moving on to materials, and Acer is well known amongst reviewers for average quality in this area, however for me the Acer TimeLineX 4820T is slightly better than average. Granted, the underside of this laptop is a matte plastic, and the display bezel is a glossy plastic, however all the plastics on this laptop have a quality feel which gives reassurance as to the durability of it. Open the laptop up, and you’ll be greeted with a metallic effect plastic keyboard and trackpad surround which looks surprisingly realistic, and it also has a lovely feel to it whilst typing away. Keen to add a premium finish to the product, Acer has done away <a href="http://www.mybape.com/bape2009shoes-c-1.html"><strong>bape apes shoes</strong></a> this time around with plastic lids and has shipped the 4820T with a brushed black aluminium one, which feels genuinely classy and adds a bit of strength which the glossy plastic bezel can’t provide. Keeping in tone with the brushed alumium lid the Acer logo on the front is also brushed. Amongst the above my personal favourite part of this laptop is when the lid is open and you check out the keyboard, as the keys themselves are pushed out from the bottom support (see image, above) and give a fantastic noise when typed on. Our model of this laptop has no flex to the keyboard so if you have hit this review straight from another where they say otherwise, there may be differences in some of the products shipped out (or they are lieing). Another nice little touch to this product is the power button (pictured, below) which illuminates blue when on. Features, performance Core i3 processor clocked at 2.13GHz. Integrated Intel HD Graphics. 4GB of RAM. 500GB HDD. Overall the specifications of this laptop are pretty decent, and we found that in performance tests the 4GB of RAM in this machine makes sure applications tick along nicely and editing photos in Paint.net and browsing the web at the same time isn’t any problem at all, despite the graphics of this machine being integrated. The Core i3 processor in this machine is a pre Sandy Bridge processor, which means the 4820T has an older version of Intel’s integrated HD graphics, but overall the machine performs quite well and is perfect for watching HD movies, streaming HD video content from Youtube and also playing games online. As noted in other reviews, despite this laptop having a pre Sandy Bridge processor, it is in fact a desktop i3 processor and the exact same one built in to some of Lenovo’s all in one’s meaning performance across the board is pretty good. During our tests, we have found nothing which slows <a href="http://www.mybape.com/products_new.html"><strong>bape sale</strong></a> the 4820T down in real world use (music, video, online games, photo editing, all at the same time) however if you are looking to buy this machine with the hope that you’ll be able to bust out a copy of Crysis, or even FarCry 2 with the graphics pumped up, you’re going to be upset. All of this performance above in some laptops comes at a price – heat – and many laptops we have seen get genuinely hot whilst in use. Not so with the 4820T, and even when the laptop vents are blocked from the laptop being on a cushion or duvet, it doesn’t get overly warm and it hibernates itself automatically after 7 minutes anyway. One key advantage the 4820T has over ultra-portables on the market is the inclusion of an optical drive. Now, this model has a 500GB HDD which is good enough for us, Â*however you may well want to back up data to optical media to free up space. A button above the keyboard opens the drive bay because it is, you know, time consumingto just use the button on the optical drive itself. Port wise this laptop has 4 USB ports, a minijack audio output/S/PDIF (shared), a minijack microphone input and a memory card reader. All of the ports on this laptop work for us which they should, being that this is a brand new laptop. Moving on to the display, and the 4820T makes use of a 14″ LED backlitÂ*1,366×768 resolution glossy screen, which makes it fantastic for viewing 720p content streamed from an iPhone or on Youtube HD, but not so great outdoors or under any sort of heavy to direct lighting. Battery One of the main factors for me when purchasing this laptop was the acclaimed 8 hours battery life, which appealed to me in two ways. First of all, can this laptop actually function for over 6 hours with Wifi on and secondly is Acer correct because after all, this laptop has a desktop i3 processor which isn’t exactly acclaimed for being amazingly power efficient, especially compared to Intel Atom processors. Lets get this out of the way then; with Wifi on, and with a mix of Youtube video’s and internet browsing, <a href="http://blog.udclick.com/ahfxy2010/1334/index.html?#c74376"><strong>The original CHI flat iron and the pink chi iron are available in ...</strong></a> the 4820T manages 5 hours 55 minutes, which is fantastic considering the performance on offer. Overall i’m happy with the battery life this system has, and even when playing full length films in 720p the laptop can get through 3 hours worth with a bit to spare. Pricing Ahh pricing, the point at which you as the consumer decide whether or not this laptop is worth it. All in all, we picked up our Acer TimeLineX 4820T 14″ laptop for under £500, at £479.98 through laptopsdirect.co.ukÂ*which we think is a good price for a laptop with these specifications. Key buying factors for me were; portability, durability and good performance at a good price. Overall Overall it is hard not to like the 4820T. It has good performance, good looks, a solid build and a solid RRP. AtÂ*2.2kg it isn’t strictly an ultra-portable, but being so thin this laptop is ever so portable in the real world and I’m currently really enjoying using it. Rating: 8 out of 5 stars (8/10) Disclaimer: laptopsdirect.co.uk didn’t send us this laptop for review, nor did Acer, it was bought by myself as a daily commute with a bit of punch.Â* &copy;2011 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved..