[Welly Wu]

How are Acer computers in terms of reliability and durability? I expect to receive a significant amount of money in the form of a refund check to be mailed to my home from New Jersey Institute of Technology this spring 2011 semester and I want to buy a secondary computer for myself. I am thinking about buying an Acer ultra portable specifically the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118. It has almost everything that I am looking for in an ultra portable:
 
Price as reviewed: $899
Processor1.46GHz Intel Core i7 680UM
Memory4GB, 1,066MHz DDR3
Hard drive 500GB 5,400rpm
ChipsetIntel HM55
GraphicsIntel GMA HD
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD)11.2 inches x 8 inchesHeight1.0-1.1 inchesScreen size (diagonal)11.6 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter 3.0 / 3.4 pounds
Category: Ultraportable
 
Does anyone here own this specific Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118?
 
If you own an Acer, then have you had any problems with this PC vendor?
 
Thank you.
 
PS:
 
This is strictly for casual web surfing and so that I can have a computer with me that is thin and light with a much longer battery life than my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC.

 

[El_Doug]

That is one heck of a superpowered system for websurfing!   That computer would be good enough for moderate gaming purposes.  In fact, its specs trump your "primary" computer. 
 
If all you want to do is word process and surf the web, you can get an EEE PC.  This would save you a bundle, would have better battery life, weigh even less, and be even easier to carry around. 
 
 
 
I have owned an Acer laptop before, however it was years and years ago.  What I can tell you is, back then, their customer service was superb, making it super easy to make a claim on the warranty - they never made it a hassle. 

 

[Welly Wu]

The Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118 is not more powerful than my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC because I purchased and installed an Intel 160 GB SSD and Crucial 8 GB of DDR3 PC-8500 SODIMM SDRAM. I also purchased Futuremark PC Mark Vantage, 3D Mark Vantage, and 3D Mark 06. My benchmark test results are much higher than the stock Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118.
 
The ASUS EEe PCs are nice, but I want the most powerful ultra portable under $1,000.00 USD available. The Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118 weighs 3.00 pounds even with a slightly larger 11.6" widescreen 1,366 X 768 pixel resolution LCD screen which makes it more usable than a netbook. The 6 cell battery lasts 7 hours and 48 minutes on a single charge. 
 
I will leave my ASUS N61JV-X2 notebook PC at home for serious academic research and coursework because it is much more powerful with a larger screen.
 
If I do buy the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118, then I will use it for casual web surfing. I will also bring it on campus to NJIT exclusively since it is much smaller and lighter to carry around.

 

[El_Doug]

If you want the "most powerful available" for "casual web surfing," all the power to you.  My suggestions were from a practical standpoint

 

[Roller]

Run from Acer as the Devil runs from the cross. Bad build quality and worse customer support.
 
And using integrated graphics chipsets is not good, not good at all. Even the lowest end discreet graphics solutions from either Nvidia or Ati outperform any integrated graphics that are out there.
 
EDIT: Don't get any netbook, those things aren't computers, are closer to monochromatic calculators.

 

[buffalowings]

stay away from acer, there's a reason they are priced lower than the competition...I experienced it first hand

 

[Welly Wu]

I realize there are horror stories surrounding Acer computers, but I am willing to take a risk on the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118 because of its low price tag for the included components along with its size, weight, and form factor. I just do not want to spend more than $1,000.00 USD for an ultra portable notebook PC with a screen size larger than 11.6" widescreen LCD screen.

 

[Roller]

It's your money.

 

[Welly Wu]

I am also looking at the new Acer Iconia dual touchscreen notebook PC. It should be priced at around $1,000.00 USD and it offers users the ability to use two separate touch screens to display information. There is custom Acer software that allows you to pull up a touch keyboard when resting both hands and fingers on one of the touch screens and there is a custom media management software application that allows you to watch photographs, play videos, and play music when resting one hand and fingers on one of the touch screens. It is a pretty innovative idea and a twist on the whole tablet trend that is popular in 2011. Depending upon the reviews, I may just get it instead of the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T–68U118.

 

[Roller]

True. A shame it's an Acer.
 
If you ever owned one, or seen what exactly is behind all that smoke and mirrors, you would know better. A shame.
 
Good luck.

 

[beamthegreat]

Quote:

That is one heck of a superpowered system for websurfing!   That computer would be good enough for moderate gaming purposes.  In fact, its specs trump your "primary" computer. 
 

No offense but it wont be able to game. It might be able to run counter strike at high settings but it wouldnt be able to play any games made from 2009- now. 

 

[JamesMcProgger]

i have an Aspire One netbook, its my thrid computer and secondary portable, i treat it like %#("$=&, only think i havent do to it is get it wet. its usually somewhere between my clothes and books in my backpack
It came with 1gb ram and i upgrade it to 2, win xp which i change to seven ... and then xp again because it was too freaking slow, it was ok with ubuntu netbook but i hated that distro.
 
cant complain about durability.
 
 
here's a bad photo of it: plz ignore the crapple sticker
 

 

[sari0n]

My sister has an acer netbook and the hdd failed after about a year.  All of my friends seem to think they suck too.  Why not get a Lenovo?  If you're willing to get something a little bigger, you could get a better i7, 8gb ram, and a real graphics card all for around ~900.  It might be a bit hard to find one at the moment with intel's recall, but I'm sure they'll be back sooner or later.
If you keep an eye out on the Lenovo deals on Ben's Bargains something will come up sooner or later.  They repeat their deals very often, you can see some of their past deals to get an idea of what they offer.
http://bensbargains.net/merchants/91/Lenovo
In fact, they actually have a sale on a 11.6" screen computer very similar to yours today, but for only 700.  I'd take Lenovo over Acer any day, and save 200 bucks too.
 

[*] Intel Core i7-640UM 1.2GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD, 6-cell

[*] Intel GMA HM55 HD, 11.6" 1366x768, Bluetooth, multi-touch pad
 
 
 
 
And you won't be able to do any serious gaming with that.  4gb of ram is fine for gaming and the i7 is great, but intel integrated graphics simply won't cut it for the new fps's.  
If you actually want a super portable computer to carry around and surf the web, you should really think twice about getting that kind of power .  More power = less battery life, and the drops are sometimes very significant.  My laptop with an i7 720QM, ati hd5650, and a full sized battery hardly lasts an hour on a full charge which sort of kills the portability.  

 

[TheKisho]

Quote:

My sister has an acer netbook and the hdd failed after about a year.

Was it one of the first Acer's netbooks? AOH150 something like that?  If so those aren't designed to be used with hard drives.  Replace it with a SSD laptop drive or never use the build in speakers again, the hard drive and the case resonates at 1kHz and will damage the drive.
 
Acers are not bad long as you never get the first model when they change their designs.  After they perfected that style of case they do pretty well (laptops).  There desktops a pretty much flawless, other then that dumb ~special~ gaming one they made.
 
As for gaming and Acer laptops if you do the proper research and get a machine with a dedicated ATI or Nvida graphics (that preform well) and doesn't use shared memory of any kind, you can run at least source games (l4d2) with pretty high settings, and other games like borderland's and mafia II.  And still have good battery life.  There are still other good options that can game but aren't gaming laptops (while it cannot play the latest and greatest at max settings they do have good battery life).  [Only mention it because I remember they has some light full size laptops for a reasonable price]
 
I'm sure you can find a more robust long battery life laptop from another company if you wanted (that are also ultra portable and have a fair size screen).  Lenovo does make extremely robust laptops.  Still just as good as the old IBM work horse laptops.
 
 
 
P.S.  Toshiba might have the best value if you look at their specs but stay far away they all die horrible deaths and Toshiba has the worst support in the world. They might fix it for a while but it will break every few months until it's out of warranty then they just drain you of cash.  I don't mind them making my TV, DVD player, VCR, they seem to be able to do that right, but their laptops are down right a crime, and a fraud (and possible can burn your house down if you put it in the wrong spot).

 

[00940]

Quote:

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Run from Acer as the Devil runs from the cross. Bad build quality and worse customer support.

And using integrated graphics chipsets is not good, not good at all. Even the lowest end discreet graphics solutions from either Nvidia or Ati outperform any integrated graphics that are out there.
 

 
Acer has indeed awful customer support. The timeline serie is however a bit better than the rest of their line in terms of quality.
 
Integrated graphics are a blessing for ultraportable btw. They give a better battery life than discrete (especially Intel's) and that's the whole point of such computers. Today these integrated cards are powerfull enough to handle any multimedia content.
 
 
If it were me for, I'd have a look at a refurbished Lenovo X201 from the Lenovo outlet.
 
Edit 1: have a look on forum.notebookreview.com
Edit 2: stay away of anything with a 600px high screen. It really is a pain to use.
Edit 3: forgot to mention that my father had an Acer and that I've fixed a few. They tend to be ill-conceived wrt thermal management: fans trapping dust and so on.