Home > Consumer Reviews > Acer Aspire 1810TZ, 11.6inch HD LED, Notebook, Intel Pentium SU4100, 3GB RAM, 250GB HDD, WebCam, Windows 7 Home Premium, Up To 8+ Hr Battery Life, 1.4kg light

I purchased this item on friday 30/10/09 from my local PC World as Amazon were showing out of stock at the time otherwise I would have purchased from here without a doubt. In my opinion, the best online shopping site there is!!

On to the product.... I have used this intensely over the weekend (approx 8 hours both days)and have been very impressed with it. Set up and start up were quick and easy, it picked up 6 possible WiFi connections in a matter of seconds (my old laptop only ever found 3 max) and I was online in no time at all.

Once online webpages loaded quickly and clearly, no sideways scrolling was needed at all on any page and text was big enough and clear enough to read comfortably.

The dual core processor coped comfortably with having 6 or 7 browser windows open and running streaming video from the likes of you tube with no hesitation or pauses.

Battery life is excellent, from a full charge it was quoting me 9 hours on the taskbar, although I would say with running multiple windows and videos for long periods of time this was actually more like 4 or 5 hours. Still very respectable considering the workload in my opinion.

When I started out looking for a portable laptop several months ago to replace my 15.6" beast I was looking at netbooks but was dismayed by the negative reviews for much more than sending email or browsing simple webpages and have been seaching for a suitable machine ever since. I thought I was going to have to make do with a Samsung NC20 for a while until I spotted the Acer 1410 and 1810, it seemed like Christmas come early.

Whilst I cant comment on the 1410's performance and whether it is worth spending the extra £70 to get the 1810 all I can say is that having spent £449 on the 1810 I would say it is money very well spent and would recommend anyone considering spending £300 on a netbook to dig deep or save for a few weeks longer and pick up one of these Acer units.

It is early days in my experience with the machine but so far it has been faultless, great look, great feel, great performance.

This notebook is one of a new range of ultra-low voltage based CPU machines. It is not much bigger then some of the larger netbooks with its 11.6" screen and has a decent battery life "upwards of 5 hours". I bought it to replace my EEE PC 901 which had a similar battery life but much lower performance, the dual core CPU in this machine really makes a difference over the single core Atom found in most current netbooks. This means that video based sites like Youtube will playback smoothly even in HQ without needing a discrete graphics card and software support, the all round performance increase thanks to the CPU makes it worth it over a netbook with the new ION chipset in my opinion. At £ 449.99 its not much more then a standard notebook which has poorer battery life, I think this bridges the gap between netbook and notebook as it fits into both categories.

The technical details on this page are incorrect (as at 6/11/09) and this machine is infact a Pentium Dual Core SU4100 1.3ghz with 3GB RAM & 250GB Hard Drive also has 4500MHD graphics chipset and 6 cell battery. I am getting 6.5 hours out of this machine whilst surfing the web via wifi which is pretty impressive. I was either going to get the 13.3" ASUS UL30a with 8 cell battery or this 11.6" machine with 6 cell battery, with the 6.5 hours I am getting I am glad I chose the smaller, lighter, cheaper machine because it still has excellent battery life and decent performance to boot.

Well, three 5 stars reviews in a row so far... so here is the fourth :)
I have a 3 year old laptop which is slow and noisy and not so portable anymore.
I was getting frustrated because my productivity was low and wanted something I could use anytime/anywhere without spending too much. I needed something light, screen size between 10' and 13', battery for at least 6 hours. Netbooks seemed the better option and being very thorough I shortlisted some but none was perfect. What some had in portability and battery life others lacked in screen size or power. I had a bitter taste in my mouth because none was perfect. I went to pcworld to make a decision and was going to buy either the Samsung N110 or the N510 but to my surprise there it was... the Acer 1810TZ.

Looking at the features, looks and price it ticked all the boxes I needed. I couldn't believe it and went home to read some reviews, everything was good and the only things that the reviews criticized was that CPU power and graphics were not great compared to current laptops and even netbooks with nvidia ion chipset. As I just wanted a machine to work I did not bother with that so that same day went back to pcworld but it was out of stock, ordered same day from amazon. I am absolutely in love with it, it is literally changing my life since day one, I take it with me anywhere, even around the house. And the best thing is that I do not feel that lack of power (pretty fast so far), specially comparing to my old laptop. If you want power and the same features you would need to buy an ultraportable which is very expensive so I do not understand the criticism.

Highlights:
Looks and choice of 3 colours. Brilliant screen and just the right size, integrated webcam (not the best but does the job) and mic, excelent battery life even with WiFi (Acer claims up to 8 hours, it is around 6-7 if using WiFi and 10-11 without, with normal use if using the powersaver plan). Keyboard is good, HDMI and VGA port. Unlike pratically every netbook this laptop reads Sony memory sticks plus 4 other common types. SPDIF port (with good software) and mic port. Windows 7 64-bit. Silent.
Reviews said speakers were not good and not well positioned, I like the quality of the speakers but they are not loud.
Some criticisms are compensated by Windows 7 and the Acer software, if you fiddle around you can make it better (for example you can use the powersaver plan and increase brightness a bit and you will have a decent machine with a lot of battery). I guess it may be my own perspective but I haven't found anything bad worth mentioning.
The SU4100 low voltage CPU although not powerful is dual-core which decreases freezes when opening 2 applications at same time for instance. 3GB RAM (all netbooks have 1GB by default). The WiFi card (windows 7 helps) picks up everything and very quickly.

Cons:
If you are picky you can say the speakers which are quite low volume (just use USB speakers or the SPDIF port), no bluetooth (only some models) although there is a bluetooth led and button, no firewire, standard webcam. But if you think what you are getting for the price you cannot really fault it.


Tips:
1) Make sure you have an external DVD recorder or borrow one to make that first recovery DVD.
2) As it comes with 64-bit windows, some 32-bit software may not install properly, no worries before running the setup, right-click on it > Properties > Compability and change it to XP SP2 or if very old software to the proper version. Then if necessary after install do the same for the shortcut.
3) Get some software to mount images (some are free) and start making images of your software to an external hard drive, so that you can use it on the laptop as a CD/DVD drive. It is pretty easy, faster and more convenient that carrying CD/DVDs.

Conclusion:
It was £449 last week, is it getting so popular that the price increased :) ?
I have checked other SU4100 CPU based laptops from Toshiba and Samsung and this one is better in my opinion and cheaper. It is that taddy bit better than a netbook (the 510D is one of the best but lacks in memory and battery and is only £70 cheaper) and it is like a ultraportable but a lot cheaper. Have I already mention that I love it?