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The most helpful favorable review
The most helpful critical review
52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
Awesome Computer
This is a great laptop. I read reviews and info about this for more than a month before laying down the cash for it. I've been extremely happy with it. It's thin and sexy. It's light (especially for a 15 inch laptop). It's extremely cool. The performance is good but not amazing. I mostly work with music editing and notation software and this laptop has handled all them...
Published 13 months ago by Nick Clair
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
dead hard drive after 2 months
started getting SMART warnings at startup. acer support site is different from their main website. 800 number is run by voice recognition software. its hard to make it recognize an 11 digit serial number. when i finally got past the pre-recorded messages i was put on hold for at least 30 min. acer would not pay for shipping of the product even though it was under...
Published 10 months ago by Rommel
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52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
Awesome Computer, August 4, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
This is a great laptop. I read reviews and info about this for more than a month before laying down the cash for it. I've been extremely happy with it. It's thin and sexy. It's light (especially for a 15 inch laptop). It's extremely cool. The performance is good but not amazing. I mostly work with music editing and notation software and this laptop has handled all them fine. I play games online with it and I have yet to find a game that it can't handle (it should be noted I only play games from the browser and have no idea how a real computer game would do, but I know since this doesn't have a graphics card it probably wouldn't do well with 3d graphics, but I dont really know.) For everyday computing this computer has all the power you need. The 15 inch model is great too. The keyboard is full sized (which was somewhat of an adjustment after using cramped keyboards for so long) and the number pad is extremely helpful (at least to me).
The battery life is why you buy this computer. All day computing is no lie. I used to own a Dell and a Toshiba which got about 3 hours battery life at best, and then up to 10 minutes as they got old. It's been hard to break the habit of packing my power adapter when I leave but I've never needed it. I can go to school all day, take my computer to class, work in the library or cafeteria and never need to worry about running out of juice. If I crank it up to "High Performance" I can get a solid 5 to 6 hours of battery, on "Power Saver" I get an easy 8 and a half and if I turn off the WiFi I can get a little more then 10 hours. I've never, never, never, run it down completely during normal use.
Overall a great computer at a great price. Everything you need with an unbelievable battery life. Free yourself from the wall socket and buy this computer!
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
This is the laptop all others should be - light, thin, cool..., September 19, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
Unless you play very demanding 3D games, the Acer AS5810(15.6"), AS4810(14.4") or AS3810 (13.7") is the one for everyone.
- Thin and light, 5.4 to 3.5 lb, < 1", nothing else I know of is like this.
- Cool, very thoughtfully designed to avoid heat buildup. Metal top, lots of spaces between keys. Bottom is never warm, palm rest area is absolutely cold, incredible.
- Quiet, as it is so cool, the fan never speeds up to make noticeable noise.
- LED backlight, should last forever and save battery.
- 8-hour battery life, never need to carry the AC adapter for the day. Never worry about empty battery, just concentrate on your work.
- Metal lid, looks VERY VERY good. This thing looks better and slimmer than MacAir, no kidding.
- Number keys included.
- Only $[...], even cheaper than other thick, heavy, hot and noisy craps.
My son, senior high, carries it in his backpack together with many thick books. This is not a demanding 3D gaming machine, exactly a good thing for a student. If you want to save $[...], then get the Dell i1545, just heavier, thicker and shorter battery life, but a real dual core CPU, unbelievable deal.
The only stupid thing: I've seen crap ware installed in new PCs before, but Acer did it to the extreme on this laptop, like 100 trial games etc.
It took me a whole day to uninstall them. Because no Vista CD included, so I could not just do a clean installation. Then I used Ghost to make a full back up for the partition 2, about 5 GB. No need to back up the partition 1, about 10 GB, it is the factory restore area and you can use Acer's utility to burn them to DVD disks. Next time when a restoration is need, I can just restore the ghost and no need to uninstall the numerous crap ware again.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Thin, light and good battery life, August 28, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
I have used several laptops (work and personal), including the hyped ThinkPad T61, T500, T400.
But the Acer Timline series laptops have really surprised me in terms of build quality, price, form factor, and battery life.
If these are the things you care most, the Timeline is for you!
My T400 never got passed 4hrs at the lowest CPU setting and LCD brightness. The Timeline consistently gives me over 5hrs (not the 8hrs+ as they claimed though) using Windows XP.
Windows XP installation (over the default Vista Premium) was a straightforward task, as Acer website provides XP drivers so you don't have to search anywhere. I tried both the 15.6" and the 14" version and personally I'd like the 14" for its screen size, though both share the same 1" thin dimension and similar battery life. The 15.6" keyboard comes with a numeric keypad.
For those people who complained about CPU spiked at 100% at random or eject button locked up the laptop, I had the same problems. After I updated it with the latest Intel graphics driver and Acer BIOS, all the problems went away!
I am usually picky about what I use, but I have to give Acer a thumb up for such a great job. After all, it only costs $549!
Can't say the same for Lenovo ThinkPad which costs more, thicker (>1.2"), and only average battery life.
What's the point of having wireless internet if you must plug in your power regularly? With the Timeline, I can truly roam most of my day without fear of running out of power.
My only complain about the 14" version: if the mouse pad could move to the left about 1", that would be perfect. As I type, my right palm occasionally touches the mouse pad that causes the mouse cursor to move. If Acer did this on the 15.6" version, why not on the 14"?
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Sexy, thin, and M-azing!, September 12, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
OK!!!! Lets start!
First let me tell you what I had before.....
a Gateway P-6860FX
Specs:
C2D 1.83GHz CPU
4GB RAM 667MHz DDR2
GeForce 8800M GTS GPU
17" 1440 x 900 LCD
320GB HDD
Definitely a gaming laptop. And now I switch to the Acer Timeline.
Specs:
Pentium 1.3GHZ (single core) CPU
3GB RAM 1066MHz DDR3
Intel GMA 4500MHD GPU
15.6" 1366 x 768 LCD (LED backlit)
320GB HDD
Now this is an "extreme" change for me. Going from Performance to Portability. Some people might think, what the f**k are you doing? You can't play games anymore. NO GTA4, Grid, Crysis, Far Cry 2, NO NOTHING. But guess what? I'm not complaining. This "little" laptop is pretty damn awesome! Well It is a little underpowered but only if you try to look for it.
Of course I'm basing my experience with this "lappy" on Windows 7 RTM. It comes installed with vista and bloatware. So just make sure you get rid of that crap and you'll be happy.
Here are my thoughts on performance....
Well actually, first let me tell you what programs I was able to run smoothly and define what "smooth" meant for each.
iTunes: Yes iTunes. And I think this is Apple's fault. My P-6860FX was laggy with iTunes. Now running an underpowered laptop makes things better? It weirdly true.
Photoshop CS4: It's not fast, but it is usable. I works for most of your photo editing needs.
Ummm. Actually that's all I got to show off right now. I've only had it for a day or so.
Oh! lets talk about battery life!
As you know they never real last as long as the company says. Unless you dim it all the way down, no wireless, power saving mode, etc. But I was able to get about 6 and a half hours with Wifi on. So not to shabby.
Keyboard!!!!
It has a chicklet style keyboard. Very responsive, good spacing and a NUM pad!!!! How I love NUM pads!!! This keyboard is was very easy to get used to.
Touchpad:
It's has multitouch capabilities. I love the pinch zoom for photos. Works pretty well. But at times it does get a little glitchy.
Speakers:
There small and not that loud. They don't really give you a theatrical bass pounding feel. But they are very "accurate" sounding.
Design:
All you have to do is look at the picture. It's very sleek and SEXY. I love takin' this around with me. And with ease weighing around 5 pounds.
OVERALL:
This laptop is totally awesome!
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:
BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
If your expectations are reasonable this laptop is perfect!, October 15, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
I read some reviews of people who where disappointed in the performance of this laptop. I have had mine for two weeks now and I think it is spectacular. The screen is beautiful and bright. Battery life is not 8+ hrs but is still amazing compared to any other laptop I have owned. The performance is very respectable for the price. Plenty of RAM and a big hard drive. The built in DVD-RW is great as well in a laptop this thin. The processor could be faster but for $525 it is everything I expected. This is a great looking laptop and the number pad on the 15.6 version is wonderful for us business people. My roomate has a 15" macbook pro and even he thinks the timeline is a very good looking machine. I expect it will preform even better when I install the free windows 7 upgrade that is included. I wanted something for my everyday computer tasks; email, photo downloading from my camera, internet browsing, itunes and media downloading/watching. It has done all of these amazingly well. I also have a monster desktop cpu with a quad-core processor, 1gb video card, 8gb of ram, 120 gb 10,000rpm raptor and a 1 tb WD black sata hard drive, so I also know what fast computing is all about. I did not buy a $525 laptop to compete with my desktop. I bought it for portability and form and battery life. It has met every expectation this user has.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Link to Windows 7 Upgrade offer, September 27, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
Here is the link to the Windows 7 Upgrade offer on Acer's website. You have to have purchased the system between June 2009 and January 2010, as I recall. The registration process is a bit tedious. Right now, it says you have until January 2010 to request the upgrade, and it will be shipped on a first come first served basis. I've had the computer for about a month. I like though I'm not getting anywhere near the 8 hours battery life advertised. Perhaps I don't have all the power saving features deployed. I haven't changed any settings since I took it out of the box. The screen is great and I don't find the mouse buttons hard to operate (which was a complaint of many). One of the plastic caps covering the hinge on the left side popped off because I was probably trying to open the screen too far, but it didn't give me the best feeling about long-term durability. We'll see--I've had nothing but IBM thinkpads for years and last year bought a Lenovo netbook.
http://www.acer.com/windows7upgrade/
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
I Love It !!!, July 25, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
This is my first laptop and I love it. The screen is beautiful, the battery life is great and it has been easy to customize setting. amazons price would be hard to beat; I looked a lot and this is a great price! The only downside I have found is when I bought it there was a offer for a free upgrade to windows 7 and after it arrived I'm having problems finding info on it. Overall still a great buy!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent Purchase, May 11, 2010
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
First off, let me start by saying this computer is excellent and RCS Electronics (I believe was the company name) is a great storefront here on Amazon.
My old Acer (which I loved) finally died of natural causes (the motherboard failed) in the middle of April which was a bad thing because it was just as I was getting toward the end of the semester all all my term papers were coming due. As such I couldn't afford to be without a computer so I immediately started looking around for a suitable replacement. That is when I came across the Acer Timeline series here on Amazon and remembered seeing a commercial saying it had 8 hours of battery life. I decided on the 15.6in model, the 5810, because of two reasons, it was the only model to come with a number pad (which I didn't really care about until I got it and its awesome)and it was the only model to come with a CD/DVD drive. I could not be happier.
I've heard from several sources that the speakers are weak and touch buttons are not that sensitive and the webcame is blurry etc. THIS IS NOT TRUE! The people of whom put that in their reviews did not take the plastic coverings off. Make no mistake, if you didnt know they were there, you would never realize it. I read that someone had to take off a covering from something and knew to look for it. As far as I could tell there were three places you might not think to look for it: on the strip of plastic above the keyboard where the speakers are, on the webcam, and on the mouspad. Take these off and it will make a world of difference to the sound and sensitivity of the touch buttons. Allow me to reiterate:
TAKE OFF THE PLASTIC ON THE WEBCAM, TOUCH BUTTONS, SPEAKERS, AND MOUSPAD OR THEY WILL NOT WORK AS WELL AS THEY COULD.
Battery Life: As the advertisements say, it does indeed get 8 hours of battery if you keep in on its low power mode, This is made easy by two things: it detects when you unplug it and automatically sends it into power saving mode; there is a series of touch sensitive buttons above the number pad that includes a "battery button" meaning all you have to do is tap it and the computer will go into power saving mode. Tap it again, and it will go back into normal mode. I haven't (as of the time I am writing this review) seen the battery at full performance yet, but I've been getting 6-8 hours according to the windows battery gauge. Even on "Balanced", which if you are not familiar with Windows Vista is a power setting that is made to be used with a laptop that is plugged in, i can easily get 4-5 hours from it. The battery is a lithium-ion (Li-Ion) which as far as I understand is the latest in battery technology and comes in a 6 cell with the computer so the machine sits flat on a table or desk and doesn't look stupid like an 8 or 12 cell does.
Performance: I am not a gamer so this laptop is excellent. It's processing power would undoubtedly be lacking for any type of games that came out after the original Starcraft so if you need a gaming computer, don't get this one. However, it is more than equipped for any standard user's everyday computing. As a student I use it ALOT for web browsing and word processing and it has absolutely no trouble doing either. I am able to be on Facebook without hassle and it plays videos from flash sites like Youtube just as smoothly as any other computer. I can have Itunes going while I'm browsing or working and it plays just fine. The 5810 also comes equipped with a webcam and I have no problems (other than the speed of the internet connection I am on) with Skype skipping or stuttering. The only thing I have found that max's out the computer gauge I have in my sidebar is when I am creating a DVD which isn't surprising given it takes quite a bit of muscle even on higher end computers as well. DVD's play without skipping. As a side note, the computer wakes up awesomely fast from sleep. Literally within 10 seconds which is great since I use it for class.
Monitor: I LOVE the screen on here. When at full brightness, it is crisp and clear and just an overall excellent display. Even on battery power when it dims, unless you are sitting in a bright room it is still pretty easy and clear to look at.
Keyboard: Unfortunately given its power saving innovations, the keyboard is not backlit. But the keys are spaced such that it is easy to hit them without hitting the one next to it as well and they have a satisfying "clack" as you type. Having the number pad takes some getting used to but once you do, it is almost invisible. Speaking of the number pad, it is VERY useful to have. I never really noticed since I'd never had one on a laptop before but its great for using the computer's calculator or even entering data like phone numbers or passwords.
Mouse pad: The mousepad has nifty little button next to it that allows you to literally turn it off so you don't bump it and send the mouse blasting across the screen and somehow managing to click on the "x" to cancel the program you are working in. I dont really use it because my fingers are long and bony enough that i can reach the keys while keeping my palms off the pad, but for someone not quite as fortunate, it is there to use. One of the cooler features about the pad is the fact is has the "multi gesture" capability. Its not NEARLY as good as Apple's, but it gets the job done. It is supposed to have three things you can do: zoom in and out by spreading or drawing your fingers together much as you would on an Ipad or Ipod Touch, but its not quite as smooth on screen and can actually get a little annoying when you are browsing a website and suddenly a single word takes up the whole screen. The second is what is wrongly depicted in the pictures as how to scroll up and down pages. You do not move your fingers in a circular motion on the pad to scroll up and down. Instead it is just like most other laptops in that there is a dedicated strip of the pad on the right hand side that you just run your finger up and down. This action is MUCH smoother than the zooming and is actually very useful. Then there is my favorite and that is the "finger sliding" in which you put two fingers on one side of the pad and slide them over to the other. This is particularly useful when navigating a web browser like Firefox as it lets you go forward and back pages without having to click on the designated buttons at the top.
Hardware: On the outside it has a very handsome looking gunmetal aluminum case so it feels sturdy and yet retains its light weight. On the sides it comes with 4 USB ports, a mic jack, a headphone jack, an HDMI port, and some other thing I don't know what is. The 5810 comes with a CD/DVD drive which is always good and it can read and write media actually pretty fast. I dont know what the actual speeds are but in real practice it wrote a standard 4.7GB DVD in under 10 minutes. To me thats pretty fast. With mine I got the SU2700 processor which as far as I was able to tell was the lowest end of the processors that Acer uses for the Timeline series. As I said before, though, it is more than adequate at doing whatever I need it to. I got a 320gig HDD which is awesome because my previous laptop only had a 120 and that was getting full. It also comes with a webcam that works perfectly for talking to people (in my case a friend in Okinawa) and taking funny pictures of yourself with. Finally the computer is designed with like 6 heat vents so it NEVER gets hot. It got a little warm sitting on my bed while trying to encode a DVD, but when I picked it up and set it on my lap it was comfortably warm, not hot.
All in all this is a great system. As I said, I am a student so the battery life is awesome. The computer only weighs in at like 4.7 pounds or something so it is light in my bag and easy to move around. If you are a student, I highly recommend this machine. It will do anything you need it to, including hook up to a projector.
Five stars.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
worth the price I paid, January 3, 2010
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
Wanted a low priced laptop for home use (internet/netflix/word procecssor). No gaming or heavy video use.
Looked extensively on the net and read all the reviews on tons of laptops. Found the AS5810TZ-4274 and purchased it for
$399.00 thru price matching (not from amazon).
After using this laptop for a week, I am very impressed with this model. Although not a powerful
laptop, it does everything I need. It is designed for low power consumption, not performance.
Vista run just fine. Have not had any problems, but looking forward to Windows 7.
SU2700 CPU, 3GB RAM, 4 USB ports, HDMI/VGA port, 10/100/100 ethernet, wireless ABGN, webcam, Vista Home Premium, 15.6 LED screen, 320GB drive.
Things I like:
- LED Screen is crisp/clear
- Performance is decent, have not had any major slows downs when running apps
- NetFlix video streams are fast. No delays - video is crisp/clear
- GoogleMaps display is clear
- Power managament programs really help save battery life
- Laptop NEVER gets warm/hot, even when I run it all day. Battery lasts forever.
- Very lite/thin
- Haven't tried the webcam yet, but nice to have it already installed
- Monitor hinges are strong/sturdy
Things I don't Like:
- WiFi LED always blinks. (annoying)
- Keyboard keys are flat. Your fingers tend to slip and accidently press adjacent key
- I wish the video chip was a bit stronger (not a major issue though) (my older laptop has the ATI chip with 256MB onboard)
Tips:
- Always set the system and harddrive password via the BIOS setup
- You can make your own recovery CD/DVD from the desktop program. Requires 14 CDs or 2 DVDs. Or, you can order from ACER for $20.00.
- Actually, recovery CD is free. Just email ACER support and tell them you want a recovery CD at no charge.
- Upgrade to Windows 7 is a free upgrade, but this will expire soon.
- Uninstall some of the bloatware programs. (i.e. trial games)
- ACER website has al the BIOS and driver updates. Make sure you update the BIOS.
- Tons of Microsoft updates for Vista. If you plan to update to Windows 7,may want to wait on the updates and just install Windows 7.
Overall, very happy that I purchased this model and considering purchasing another for my wife.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, Lightweight, And A Good Value!, November 4, 2009
This review is from: Acer Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274 15.6-Inch Laptop - 8+ Hours Battery Life (Personal Computers)
The emphasis of this computer (Aspire Timeline AS5810TZ-4274) is lightweight and lasting power (8+ hours from a single charge), so if your requirement is not heavy gaming or number-crunching, I consider it quite suitable for Internet tasks such as browsing, blogging, emailing, Skyping, YouTubing, etc. and running productivity applications such as OpenOffice and Microsoft Office. Although the computer is available in three different sizes, I like the 15.6 inch model most because it has the largest screen and is still quite light to carry around.
Because the chassis is very thin, the optical disc eject button has been moved to a place just above the numeric keypad (yes, this wide screen notebook has a dedicated number keys area), so when you need to insert or eject a disc, you won't have to hunt for that eject button with your finger. The disc tray, as other reviewers pointed out, does feel a kind of flimsy; you should support it with your fingers when you are inserting a disc.
The keys on the keyboard are of the Chiclet style, like those on Apple MacBooks. The key surface is completely flat, as opposed to a regular keyboard that has a concave surface. I don't know if this has any effect on typing. It just looks different. The key surface is not matt finish, so if your fingers are oily, the keyboard would look soiled.
The trackpad is very sensitive, so if you do not need to use it, you can press the trackpad on/off toggle swtich on the upper right of it to turn it off. For reasons of speed and efficiency, whenever possible, I try to use an USB mouse connected to the computer, rather than attempt to use the trackpad on any notebook computer. The trackpad will wear out quickly if constantly used, and if you plan to sell the computer at some point in the future, a worn trackpad will drastically diminish the value and desirability of the computer.
Acer probably wanted to save as much power as possible, as there are no indicator lights for Caps Lock, Number Lock, or Scroll Lock. The hard disk access light is a very tiny blue LED; you'd have to look at it carefully to see its activity.
The left and right speakers are located right above the keyboard area. They are also small but can generate pretty loud sounds. When I was unpacking this new computer, at first I did not notice that there was a thin, transparent film protecting the area covering the speakers and the four indicator lights. This film significantly muffles the volume of sound if you do not remove it, so if you find the speakers not loud enough, that would most likely to be the cause.
The computer is shipped with Windows Vista, but you can order a free Windows 7 upgrade from Acer ([...]), as long as you do it before its January 31, 2010 deadline. I upgraded this computer to Windows 7 Ultimate after first making restore and drivers discs, in case I want to revert back to Vista at some point in the future:) The restore discs require 2 DVDs and the drivers and apps disc requires one. The process is very time-consuming; making these three discs took almost two hours! The Windows 7 install went without any problem; it was able to detect all hardware and install all drivers! If you don't have a lot of time, you may want to consider changing over to Windows 7 without first making a backup of Windows Vista. But if there is a possibility that you may return the computer to where you bought it, then it is probably better to backup, so you can restore it to factory OS.
After the Windows 7 upgrade, the Timeline runs extremely smoothly without any problem. This model has the Intel Pentium SU2700 1.3 Ghz CPU, 3 Gb of DDR3 memory, and 320 Gb of hard disk capacity. It is so cool-running that it is nearly silent in operation.
If you don't play much games and want a large screen notebook that you can easily carry anywhere, the Acer Aspire Timeline is an excellent choice.
With Windows 7, IMO, there is less need to switch over to Apple's Mac for ease of use and/or security. This computer cost just 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of an Apple MacBook Pro 15, and it's lighter.
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