Prime Notebook Computer Review

The Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T has finally broken cover and has been officially announced by Acer. Acer’s 11.6-inch Aspire Timeline series has produced a number of strong performers below $600. But how much more could an extra Benjamin buy? The latest model in the line, the TimelineX 1830T, features the new Intel Core i5 430UM processor. This ULV CPU makes Acer’s ultraportable one of the most powerful on the market under a grand, while delivering nearly 6 hours of battery life.

The Aspire TimelineX 1830T looks nearly identical to the Aspire One 721 netbook. It has the same svelte profile (1 to 1.1 inches thin) but weighs a little bit more (2.8 pounds versus 3 pounds). Nevertheless, the 1830T is easy to carry, and its dual-core horsepower is worth the extra few ounces. The thin-and-light Acer Aspire 1830T looks great, and features an 11.6-inch LCD with a 1366 x 768 resolution (720p HD).

Ports and features exceeded expectations—at least for an 11-inch laptop. The standouts included an HDMI port and 500GB hard drive, features that Acer could have skimped on but didn’t. It made room for 3 USB ports and included all the usual laptop connectivity options, such as a multimedia card reader, Ethernet, VGA, and audio ports (mic, headphone).

The 1830T-3721 runs on an Intel Core i5-430um, and though its 1.2GHz clock rating may not seem lightning fast, the technology behind this processor is more advanced than the Core 2 Duos found in the Asus UL80Vt-1A and MSI X420. It’s speedier than the AMD Athlon Neo processor found in the Lenovo X100e, which I consider an equivalent to the Intel Atom found in netbooks. And unlike netbooks, the 1810T comes standard with 4GB of DDR3 memory.

Compared to the 1810TZ, the 1830T’s graphics scores were much improved, owing to an upgrade to the Intel HD GPU with 128MB of memory. The 1830T scored 1,278 on 3DMark06, more than double the 1810TZ (586), and about 200 points higher than average. However, the 1830T is rivaled by the Aspire One 721, whose ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics (with 384MB of memory) produced a score of 1,237. The Nvidia Ion GPU in the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN did even better, notching 1,329 in the same test.

Playing World of Warcraft on the 1830T was a little better than before. With the resolution set to 1024 x 768 (and graphics at default), we saw an average rate of 30 frames per second, which dipped to 6 fps when we upped the game to the native resolution; that’s roughly the same as the the category average (35/9 fps), the Eee PC 1201PN (28/12 fps), and the Aspire One 721 (30/8 fps).

It’s easy to mistake the Acer Aspire 1830T-3721 for a netbook, as the 11.6-inch widescreen and 3-pound frame are features of one. However, beyond its looks lies one of Intel’s newest CULV processors, which is fast enough to please any performance enthusiast, while battery efficient enough to last through a multi-legged flight. If you need a bigger screen, better battery life, and a sleeker frame, the Asus UL80VT-A1 is the better pick and even more formidable when it upgrades to the new Core processors.