Home > Consumer Reviews > Acer 3810TG Timeline (13.3-inch HD LED, 9+ Hours Battery, Intel Core2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz, 4 GB, 500 GB, Dedicated Graphics, Vista Home Premium, WiFi)

I started out wanting a netbook for portability and battery life but the more I looked at those the more I just knew that I couldn't put up with the inevitable compromises of screen size and processing power. This Timeline has much of the portability (OK it won't fit in a handbag but is light enough and compact enough for a small shoulder bag or compact backpack) and has all, if not more, of the battery life (yes, easily 8 hours or more!) of most netbooks.

Despite its compact size and staying power the Timeline just zooms along with all office and multimedia tasks and has plenty of resolution and screen real estate to allow you to see what's going on. It has no optical drive but I bought a USB portable drive to load software and to transfer DVDs to the capacious harddrive. When it comes to watching the films the screen has great colour although the viewing angles are rather critical. The switchable graphics are worth the extra, in my opinion, if you want to watch films or play the occasional game. If you just want to do office tasks you could save a significant amount by going for the cheaper version with the Core Solo processor and built-in Intel Graphics version - but I'm very glad I paid more for a machine which should remain usable for even longer. Check out Acer's own extra warranties, by the way, NOT Amazon's expensive versions!

The Timeline has enough power to run Vista almost as speedily as my Quad core, fast graphic card desktop machine - and from what I've seen of Windows 7 already that is going to be a perfect for this little beauty when the free upgrade arrives. I've had a few niggles with wi-fi connectability but this seems to be a Vista problem and has been improved by using the high performance battery option and hopefully will be fully sorted when I switch to Windows 7.

Just a couple of small criticisms: Firstly the keyboard, though it feels great in use, has a shiny finish that readily shows up greasy fingermarks. It is a shame the keys are not a more sensible matte finish like the rather restrained (some might say boring!) finish on the machine itself. Secondly the click bar on the touchpad is a single key and quite hard to click. I understand that the latest versions of this Timeline machine have fixed this slightly annoying problem - check if you think you might be bothered by this, but I haven't been as I'm using a superb Nano wireless mouse most of the time (also highly reccommended!).

Bottom line - more capable and grown up than a Netbook if you know you are going to be annoyed by their limitations, but still very portable and with fantastic battery life.

Bought just a week before Acer issued a voluntary recall notice about a possible overheating and case deformation problem.

Attempted to return the unit for the fix, replacement of microphone cable, but experienced problems straight away with the failure of the support staff to identify the serial number.
I struggled to understand the English being spoken by Acer's rep, however, after a while I managed to explain to him that there really was a recall notice that he wasn't aware of - this was a week after the recall was initiated.

Bingo! He quickly agreed that such an issue was being addressed and that there was a special recording for me to listen to, which would give me the info required to send it in. Click went the phone and as fast as that, I was listening to the instructions. Problem with this though, I just couldn't make out what was being said, the accent was pretty dreadfull and simply put, I just hung up, and arranged the return of the unit to Amazon for a refund.

So, the upshot is that the 3810tg is a great mobile laptop, everything just shines on it and I would recommend it to anybody who needs long life battery and good performance.

Just as long as it is trouble free...