Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-6651 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I reviewed a bunch of machines, and would probably have been happy with quite a few of them. (Let's face it, that's true for most of us.) I ended up getting this as the best combination of features and price, and I've been very happy. I needed a portable machine that was more powerful than a netbook, had good resolution on the screen, and that had an HDMI port. This little thing fits the bill admirably. I'm a professor, so I write manuscripts and research proposals, run research projects, prepare lectures, grade student assignments, log into my school's VPN, Blackboard, webmail etc, run moderately sophisticated stats, cruise the web, watch streaming movies and sports, listen to music, all frequently while commuting on the bus/metro, and it all goes very smoothly, with the battery running roughly 6 hours (although I haven't pushed it). I recently lugged this along on a vacation, and it fit very easily into a small carry-on backpack (with room for a bunch of other things) and was great on the plane and at the house where we stayed. This thing also links easily to my HD flatscreen (hello ESPN3). I'm not a gamer, I don't spend much time on social network sites (so turn-of-the-millennium), and I don't edit video/photos/music. If those activities are important for you, then I'm not a good point-of-reference. I gave this 4 stars because it doesn't make me coffee in the morning and it wasn't free. (Actually, because the touchpad took some getting used to; although now I have and it's just fine.)

This review is based on my initial impressions; I've only owned the Acer Aspire 1830T-6651 for 2 days now. I intend to update in the future.

My initial reaction: great laptop. I upgraded from an MSI Wind U123. The 1830T is only slightly larger (though slimmer than the U123, even at the U123's slimmest point) while offering increased screen size and resolution. I always found the U123's max resolution of 1024x600 to be kind of irritatingly insufficient. The Acer's 1366x768 is much nicer.

I'll also note that I'd been considering a Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S. I checked one of these out at a Sony store, and while they were decent, the screen housing and hinges seemed really flimsy to me. In contrast, I'm impressed with the 1830T, which feels much more solidly constructed.

OEM HARDWARE:

RAM = 2x Nanya nt2gc64b8hc0ns-cg 2GB 2Rx8 PC3-10600S-9-10F2 1333

HDD = Western Digital WD5000BEVT-22A0RT0 500GB 5400RPM

Wifi = Acer part number T77H103, Broadcom BCM943225HM half size mini PCI

A/C Adapter = Leader Electronics IU40-11190-0116 Ouptput 19V, 2.15A, 40W (I love that it's so tiny. Perfect for traveling.)

UPGRADING:

This box will support 8GB of RAM. I upgraded using Crucial CT2KIT51264BC1067. The BIOS registers all 8GB, and the pre-installed 64-bit version of Windows 7 Premium sees all 8GB.

I also upgraded to an Intel 320 Series 120GB SSD. Honestly, I'm not as impressed with the SSD upgrade as I thought I might be. The improved boot time is nice, but sticking with the original hard drive probably would've been fine.

If you've any experience doing so, upgrading is pretty straightforward. Remove 5 screws, open the access panel, and you'll have ready access to the HDD, RAM and mini-PCI slot.

This thing doesn't come with OS restore disks. However, if you have an external DVD writer, there's a utility under the 'Acer' program folder called 'Acer eRecovery Management' which allows you to create your own restore discs. It requires 3 blank DVD-R's. Alternately, you can order physical system restore discs on the Acer website at a cost of approximately $20. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any way of attaining the base Windows 7 discs -- free of bloatware (a term I hate using) -- from Acer.

GRIPES:

I'm not in love with the keyboard. I mean, it's fine, but I think I'd prefer slightly beveled keys. For those complaining about the keyboard impeding their ability to touch-type, I'd argue that if you can't touch-type using this keyboard, you aren't much of a touch-typist.

OTHER NOTES:

When first turned on, bluetooth won't be enabled. Hit Function (Fn) + F3 to bring up an on-screen menu which will allow you to enable bluetooth.

*******UPDATE August 7th 2011*******

So... I've used this thing a bit more, and have had time to find a few flaws.

First off, at least on mine, the bluetooth antenna stinks. I have a Jawbone Jambox bluetooth speaker (which I love). I have no issues connecting to the speaker from my other laptop, or my phone. The speaker can be 20 feet away and still work fine. When paired with the 1830T, even when placing the laptop a foot away from the Jambox... the audio is choppy. Retracting one full star because of this.

Secondly, as mentioned before, I've upgraded to an Intel 320 SSD. I used the BIOS (latest version: 1.20) to set a SATA password on the hard drive, in order to enable the drive's built-in encryption. For some reason, in SATA AHCI mode, I receive no password prompt when booting up, therefore the drive can't be booted from. A temporary workaround I've found, is to enter the BIOS, change the SATA mode to IDE, boot in IDE mode (which always displays the password prompt), unlock the hard drive, hit ctrl+alt+del to reboot, enter the BIOS again and set the SATA mode back to AHCI mode. After doing this, I'm now presented with a SATA password prompt and am able to boot in AHCI mode. I'm working with both Acer and Intel to resolve this problem. Not entirely sure if this is an Acer or Intel issue yet. Will update again with any progress made.

I bought this machine back in April - and for the most part really happy with it, was upgrading from a Acer F-One-200 dual core AMD, so confident with the brand and loved the form factor.
Has proven to be powerful enough for all the apps I run (VISIO, Office Apps, Video-Conferencing, video editing etc)
The first thing I did when I got it was upgrade the HDU to 7200rpm (vs 5200 it ships with) and 4Gb ram to 8Gb DDR3 ram (which it supports no issue, despite what documentation says)
I was hoping I would be able to dual boot and run Win2008 with Hyper-v - and while it installed Win2008 Sp1 (64bit) no issues, there is no BIOS support for DET - so no hyper-V :( in fact bios settings in general are extermely basic
However it does run Oracle (was SUN) Virtual box extremely well (and in Win7 Enterprise sp1) so that has removed the need for dual boot - it runs DC, SharePoint and SQL server images very well, great as a back up option for demos / dev where comms back to the office is a challenge.
I guess I was really asking to much re Hyper-V support on such a cheap notebook (but feel if the BIOS hadn't been crippled it would have been capable) - but overall very happy with performance, size and battery life.