Acer Aspire 1810TZ So you want a small notebook, but you're put off by the average netbook's puny graphics, relatively low res screen and limited-horsepower Atom processor. What do you do? Acer Aspire Timeline 1810TZ Acer's Aspire Timeline 1810TZ: big name, small notebook We think you could do a lot worse than Acer's Aspire 1810TZ. Sony's …
I briefly ran the Ubuntu 9.10 live disc, and can verify that Wi-Fi works fine - it often doesn't on netbooks, at least not out of the box. But I didn't look at other kit, such as the memory card reader, webcam or ethernet.
If I get a mo, I'll try these out and report back.
However, I did notice the fan seems to spin up rather more than it does under Windows 7. There may be a dedicated kernel to fix this, however.
The first one took a short fall on Monday and the screen was trashed. Worringly so the base was also warped which makes me question the suitability for travel. However this also meant I could secure a quick replacement via my insurance.
My 2nd one has faster memory inside and what appears to be a duller screen.
As for the fan, there is a community developed tool that I found that lets you configure how oftent he fan comes on and this has made the machine much quieter.
Bit of a shame about the fact PC Vantage was used for the battery test, and not the standard netbook video test. A video test can run on any laptop, not just a netbook, and would provide adequate comparison. As it stands, the figures are all based on competing laptops of a slightly larger size. I don't really see why PC vantage was used in this case.
People are going to see this as a netbook, if not in name, in features.
I was looking at getting the same laptop, but with a bigger 13.3" screen, the 3810TZ.
Asus are bringing out their UL30A1 which is core duo, with other models such as UL30A2 etc. They work out a bit more expensive, but the battery life is considerably better, up to 11 hours.
The UL20A also seems a good deal. The 2 year international warranty compared to Acer's 1 year may also be a winner. Nothing on amazon UK as of yet, so I'm sitting tight for now. I think it's better to buy this after Christmas if at all possible once Asus' pricing has been confirmed.
Looks like a nice little machine. I would certainly consider one when I upgrade my current Acer Aspire 2920 (12.1" notebook, in fact reviewed on here a year or two back).
I just wish a few more manufacturers would start doing machines like this rather than over sized netbooks as not everyone wants to lug around a 15" or 17" machine (I certainly wouldn't want to lug a 17" machine around due to the weight), and sometimes we need a little bit more CPU power than an Atom can give.
Shame Acer didn't drop an ION chipset in this little machine though.
Rob
Just got my 1810TZ . Overall very nice--solid build quality, as suggested by the review. A few things the review didn't note: The USB ports are very tight. The sound has some background hiss, as expected for built-in sound. No hum or other frequencies (a problem I've encountered on other notebooks). There is a recovery partition on the hard disk. I made recovery discs (with an external DVD burner), then wanted to free up the space from the recovery partition, so I repartitioned the disk, and reinstalled from the recovery discs. This worked with no problems, though it did take it 1.5 hours (no human intervention required though).
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