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Acer Timeline Aspire 4810TZ [Review]
A well priced notebook that performs well too
Good looks, slim, lightweight, comfortable keypad, HDMI, battery life, Windows 7 Home Premium, optical drive, price
Slightly underpowered
Check specifications


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1. Intro Bundle: -
We've already seen the 13-inch Acer Timeline and today we'll look at the 14-inch version. Apart from the larger screen the notebook features the same design with only a couple of changes to the layout and an addition of an optical drive. The Timeline Aspire 4810TZ that we are reviewing today continues to boast of an eight hour battery life. The Timeline also continues to stay with the motto of providing a portable computing solution. Acer has therefore not beefed up the processing power in this model. Let's see if the Timeline continues to stay as an ideal portable computing solution for the business user.






Bundle: -
--> Acer Timeline 4810TZ
--> Charging Cable & Adapter
--> Driver CD
--> Warranty Card
--> Bag

The notebook comes with Windows 7 Home Premium installed.

2. Build & Design: -

The Acer Timeline cannot make a style statement but nonetheless has an executive look to it. The Timeline utilizes aluminium for its lid and there is a brushed metal Acer logo placed in the center. The use of aluminium reduces the overall weight and adds to the overall looks by subtracting the possibility of fingerprints.


Even though this is a 14-inch version of the Timeline, it is still under an inch thick.Coming to the layout of the laptop, on the left is a USB port placed close to the hinge. There are the air vents for the processor followed closely by the VGA and the HDMI port. The second USB port is placed alongside the audio ports for easy access. One jack is a Line-In/MIC port, while the other is a Line-out/SPDIF/headphone jack.

To the right of the laptop there is the Kensington Lock at the far end followed by the LAN/RJ45 port, and a USB port. The welcome addition is the DVD-RW optical drive on this side.

The memory card slot, which is placed on the side in the 13-incher, is now found right in the front. There is a long LED that is placed right in the center falling just below where the touchpad button is. The LED denotes battery status (amber for charging, blue for fully charged).

The lid of the Acer Timeline Aspire 4810TZ can be opened up to 120 degree. The screen is 14.1-inch with over 720P resolution (1366 x 768 pixels). Above the screen in the center is a web camera for video conferencing. There's also a MIC placed to the left. The screen is well protected with rubber padding all around it.

Coming down to the keypad area we have the same good-looking keypad design. Above the keypad to the left is a power button that has a sleek and neat metal finish with an LED. The LED states if the laptop is powered ON or is in standby with a white and amber glow respectively.

Besides the Power button in the same line are speakers and a set of touch sensitive buttons. The touch sensitive buttons above the keypad are for Wi-Fi, Smart Backup, and PowerSmart. There is also an HDD utilisation LED.Acer has found it ideal to place the optical drive eject button at an accessible location and hence it's found at the front alongside the HDD LED.

Coming back to the keypad, it features a nice glossy finish with similar design as seen on the Acer Aspire 4736Z and the 5738Z. This provides for a smooth flow of your fingers over the keys and a very comfortable typing experience. The keys have a nice feedback to every punch, much softer to the iteration seen on the Aspire models. This makes for longer hours of comfortable computing.

Below the keypad is the touchpad placed in the center and with sufficient wrist space on either side. The touchpad is provided with a lock button for comfortable typing. So you can turn off the touchpad if it is a hindrance. The touchpad features a step design for the buttons. They are placed a step lower than the touchpad surface for easy perception and tapping left or right without looking.

Overall, I liked the design of the Timeline; there is nothing exquisite about it, but it's still good-looking and practical

3. Performance: -

SiSoftware Sandra 2009

4. 3DMark 06: -

5. PCMark Vantage: -

6. Performance Analysis: -

The Acer Timeline 4810TZ is powered by an Intel Pentium Processor (U4100 - 1.3GHz 800MHz). This processor is a low power consuming processor but doesn't really sacrifice on the performance. It has 3MB of L2 cache and runs at 800MHz; good enough to keep things smooth on the spec sheet. The processing is supported by 2GB of DDR3 RAM running at 1066MHz.

So now going through the benchmark results and given the build and design of the Acer Timeline, I'd like to pit it against the Samsung X360 and the previous Timeline - the 3810T.

If you take a look at the SiSoftware Benchmarks, you'll notice that there is a multi-core benchmark result that was not there in the 3810T review. So this Timeline - the 4810TZ - is therefore a much better performer. Its performance is more or less similar to the Samsung X360, just that there is a slight increase in overall performance of the Samsung X360, but that's because of the SSD drive instead of HDD.

This Timeline is overall a good performer and will crunch all office document work with ease and also playback HD content without much trouble. Given the work quotient this isn't the ideal solution for Creative or Animation, so all other basic work can be easily handled. This Acer Timeline is much more powerful when compared to its sibling.

7. Battery: -

LifeThe Acer Timeline is equipped with a 6-cell Li-ion battery and has a specified battery life of eight hours. The claim of eight hours is similar to that of the Samsung X360. We put the Acer Timeline's battery through its paces and got a really good result of over four hours in our BurnIn Test. However, this is a half an hour lesser than the Samsung X360. This means the Timeline can last much longer, as the Battery Profile was set to Power Saver but had Wi-Fi turned ON. With the PowerSmart mode of the Acer Timeline turned ON it could easily provide 5-6 hours of usage. Once again Acer has showcased how power efficient laptops can be.

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We help you choose components to put together a basic PC 1. CPU: - If you are one of those who have been saving to buy a PC this festive season, here is a guide that would help you put together an entry-level PC.In today's times this is basic computer that will allow you to easily perform all your daily tasks without any problem, which may include some Office applications, internet, multimedia (music & movies) and some casual gaming.
We set off with a budget of Rs.20,000 in mind, which is a fairly acceptable price for your first PC or someone looking for a basic setup, but not bare bone either like a netbook. These are all Mumbai prices, so if you're in Delhi or Chennai then you may get these components for a little less since these things are always a little pricier in Mumbai. So without wasting any more time let's get on with it and build our entry-level PC.

2. Motherboard: Whenever you buy a CPU and motherboard, it's better if you buy them as a set as many vendors offer you a small discount when you do so. The two choices were Intel E5200/G31 and Athlon IIX2/740G. We chose AMD for our entry-level system because you get a higher clock speed for the same price as an Intel E5xxx series chip. Yes, you can overclock the E5200 more easily but we are not targeting that audience here and more importantly we are looking for a solid performing combo, and even a blonde would agree that the 740G kicks the G31's butt.

3. Memory (2GB RAM): -

4. Hard Drive: -

For the HDD we wanted to go for the Seagate 500GB, which sells for 2.4K. However, the new version (7200.12) has some problems like developing bad sectors or simply dying. The price of WD is still a bit high at 2.7K (for our build at least), so we went with Hitachi, which isn't talked about much, but performs well and doesn't have any major issue that Seagate is currently facing with their 500GB.

4. Cabinet with SMPS: -

Circle 512 with 400W Power Supply - (Rs. 1,300)

Circle is a tried and tested brand that provides good quality cabinets for a very reasonable pricing. Another main point is that the cabinets are pleasing to the eye with a modern design and plenty of ventilation holes, as well as provision for a fan in the front and back. The one we've chosen is one from their lower end models that fits our budget.

5. Optical Drive: -

LG, Sony DVD Writer (Rs. 1,125)

Here you can go for any brand that is easily available to you. All of them are around the same price of 1.2K.

The monitor of choice here would be the AOC 831S+, which has some good specifications like 1366x768 resolution screen, 300 cd/m2 of brightness, 10000:1 Dynamic contrast ratio, 5ms response time, VGA and a piano black finish.
If you want something cheaper, then there's the Acer AL1716W, which is a 17 incher that retails for 5.9K. I would still suggest you go for the bigger screen though.

This is the most basic keyboard and mouse combo that is comfortable to use and relatively cheap

We've reviewed a 2.0 speaker system known as the BXR1220. (Read the review here) This is desktop variant that comes with a 4-inch subwoofer that should provide some decent bass in music and movies. Another alternative to this is the Logitech R20 (also a 2.1 system) that retails for just Rs. 850.

9. Final Build

What this will let you do?

--> Watch Full HD movies
--> Play music
--> Office and other productive work
--> Surf the Internet
--> Light/Casual gaming

Thanks to the strong onboard GPU that's derived from the 780G, you can easily play games like The Sims 3, StreetFighter IV, or anything on the Unreal 3 engine albeit at low settings. In fact, even full HD movies are not a problem when you use Media Player Classic: Home Cinema, which uses the GPU to decode the movie. Below is our entire PC at a glance.