My review of the Acer 3820tg laptop
About two months ago, I was in need of a new laptop, so I started looking at various models of different brands. I knew I was going to take it to school so it would need to be small and it would also need to have an excellent battery life (I don't particularly like searching for power outlets). I also wanted the computer to be powerful, since I was planning to play games on it as well as do some video editing. On top of that, I wanted it to look great and still be under a grant.
I looked into a lot of different models, and none fit those expectations except the Acer Timeline X 3820tg laptop. It's the perfect mix of portability, performance and design. In this blog, I will review every aspect of the computer. It's a complete review.
1. Screen size and quality: The Acer 3820tg (I think I'll name the laptop Acy for this review. It's kind of a cute way to name Acer). Ok so Acy's screen is a 13.3 inch LED screen with a screen resolution of 1366x768 (16:9 aspect ratio) and a glossy finish. I like the display's brightness settings, because you can really adjust the brightness to the situation (there's a big difference between the lowest brightness setting and the higher ones). If you want to save power, it can be dimmed to an almost unreadable setting and if you want to use it outside I'm pretty confident you could. There are some drawbacks though: in a lit room, the contrast of the screen is very good but if you're going to be using it in total darkness the colors won't look vivid. Also, sometimes the display flickers when the lowest brightness settings are used. The DPI is excellent in my opinion: the pixels aren't big and the image looks very defined. Overall: The screen is very thin so it excuses many of its drawbacks and the LED screen really makes the colors pop in (compared to my Toshiba notebook's LCD screen).
2. Performance: My model came with an Intel Core i5-430m processor, 4gb of DDR3 ram, an ATI 5470 video card and a 5400rpm SATA Hard drive. It performs pretty well in video conversions (i.e. a movie takes roughly 20 minutes to convert to iPod Touch format) and even in games. Any game out today will work on it decently (the newer ones and Crysis on low/medium setting). Please note that the notebook performs best when plugged in to A/C power. Overall: Great performance for a notebook this size.
3. Reliability: It's a lot more reliable than my older laptops, which often crash and have trouble booting up. Sometimes Windows crashes, but that can't be helped. I noticed that it doesn't crash as much as the other PCs I'm using: video editing software like Adobe Premiere CS5 rarely crash.
4. Durability: The Acy is pretty sturdy and feels tough. I've been taking it to school every day for the past month and it's survived many things. I noticed that some "white spots" have appeared on the screen though. The screen is very thin though and feels like it could get damaged easily. Time will tell.
5. Battery life: Its battery life is pretty good, although I'd like it to last longer. When playing videos, It usually lasts 4 hours (shorter for HD videos), when writing text/reading an eBook it can last about 7 hours and when playing games, I'd say an hour and a half. When the machine is using the ATI video card, the power consumption is huge and the battery doesn't last long at all. It's a good thing the laptop also comes with an Integrated Intel video chip to preserve battery. I like the fact that the battery is removable and can be changed quickly.
6. Webcam: The webcam's quality is pretty good, especially when put in the higher definition settings. The microphone quality isn't bad and is good enough for Skype calls.
7. Wi-Fi: The computer comes with integrated Wi-Fi (as most laptops), but it's very good. It detects more networks than my older Toshiba laptop (it can detect signals from far). I never had a problem connecting it to my local network and well that's about it. I don't lose connection while playing online and it downloads as fast as my Internet connection allows.
8. Extras: Sadly, it doesn't have a USB 3.0 port (I would really have liked to have one on it), but it has some other extras. It has the typical card reader for the most popular formats (SD, SDHC, etc.), it has an internal Bluetooth module (hasn't been so useful since my older computer mice are not compatible with it), and a multi-touch touchpad (it's useful to show off xD)
9. Speakers: I suggest you use some headphones or plug in some external speakers, since the quality of the speakers isn't exemplar. Even though it says that it's "Dolby home theater" and "virtual surround sound", the sound seems to have to bass at all.
10. Ports: It has three USB ports, VGA-out, HDMI-out, an headphone jack, a microphone jack, an Ethernet jack and that's about it. It doesn't have fancy Firewire, USB 3.0 ports or other ports: just the usual and most useful ones. Keep in mind that the notebook doesn't have an optical drive so if that's your thing you'll have to either buy an external DVD drive or look for another computer.
Overall: I think it's a great computer and even though it has a couple of issues, it's the best 13.3 inch notebook I've heard of for the price. It's value can't be beat and I encourage you to buy it. I'm very happy with my purchase and if could travel in time and go back to when I was choosing which laptop to buy I would still buy it. My Acy laptop now has a place in my heart.
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