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Autonomy
One of the main selling points of Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is its autonomy. It can operate up to 9 (nine) hours under minimal load. This result is made thanks to combination of various factors. Components that Acer used belong to “low power consumption” category. This laptop is based on new Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 CPU that has maximal TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 5.5W. Screen has LED backlight while DDR3 memory wastes less power compared to DDR2. There is also integrated graphics card. Nevertheless, all this was not enough to achieve 9 hour autonomy goal, so Acer created Acer Smart Power technology. This technology monitors all components in the system and shuts down those that are not used for some time. For example, if you watch movie from HDD some components are not used at all, like optical device and wireless card so those will be shut down completely. The moment you need those components power will be served and everything will be powered on and fully functional. All this is, of course, hidden from the eyes of user and functions automatically. Even under full load, this laptop manages to work without power source for 4 hours, which is another great result. We should mention that display is nicely lighted even when we set backlight at minimal level, so you can work comfortably even under maximum autonomy mode.
First battery tests showed that autonomy is somewhere between 3 and 7 hours and if you are wondering how come those figures are so different the answer lays in fact that this laptop has two graphics cards. Lower autonomy results were achieved with ATI HD 4330 graphics card active, while higher autonomy result are achieved with integrated card. ATI HD 4330 doesn’t offer high level performances but it is much better solution for everyday work than integrated Intel X4500MHD.
Switch from one to another graphics card is easy and done in two clicks thanks to one icon residing in Windows Tray. However, when it comes to switching active graphics cards there are some small limitations. If some application uses 3D resources of graphics card, switch is not possible. In most occasions (Internet surfing, watching movies, reading …) there will be no problems. During short period when switch is made screen with get black (blank) for few moments and after that, everything will be as it should be. These small problems could be ironed out in some of the future driver revisions.
Components
CPU has advanced features but in some cases presence of only one core at 1.4GHz can be noticed. If you are business user, this shouldn’t be considered as problem because whole system offers nice performances when it comes to internet browsers and office applications. Other components are one of the best available at the moment. Very fast WD HDD, 4GD DDR3 RAM and webcam. Mentioning a webcam may sound strange, but this webcam can record video in 1280x800 with 30fps. Picture quality is good with only drawback being high CPU load. Acer system for wireless network detection is further improved so 4810TG can detect very weak signals and provide high-speed transfers. Sound subsystem is good and offers average sound quality.
Warming up of this laptop isn’t high even after few hours of torturing. Obviously, Acer Comfy Touch technology that uses Laminar Wall Jet Engine works perfectly. Laminar Jet Engine is developed in cooperation with Intel and takes all advantages of technology used in cooling systems of jet turbines. By shaping cooling system elements, heated air is transferred along bottom of the chassis, so upper surfaces can stay cool.
If we should emphasize few problems noticed on Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T than we should mention: absence of Express Card slot and small viewing angle of display. So, first thing first. Express Card slot is nice thing especially when we know that Express Card SSDs are coming. Other than that, you won’t be needing it for much else since Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is nicely equipped. Viewing angle of display is little bit smaller than what we are used to see, but not in amount that it will discourage you from purchase.
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