Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought the first one when it came out last August in Europe. It is the same specs as the US sold one. I also purchased this again from Amazon for a gift and have in the household the Acer AS1830T-3721 (i5 model), and the AS1830T-3505 (i3 model), both purchased here on Amazon.
BATTERY RUN TIME:
The AS1830T-series includes a 5800mAh 6-cell Lithium Ion battery that sits nearly flush. Acer accomplishes this by moving the keyboard forward and cutting the battery casing into the top of the laptop frame. This gives it a nearly flush (top to bottom and out the back) fitment. Acer states an 8 hour run dead time. My experience is about 5.5 hours using WiFi and Bluetooth without letting it sleep and about 6 and up to 7 hours with Bluetooth off with rest periods in-between.
SCREEN:
Very impressive. Mercury and lead free LED backlighting (Light Emitting Diode) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) at 11.6 inches diagonal measure 1366 x 768 pixels (720P 16x9). It has a 200-nit high brightness. The backlighting is extremely even (many reports with graphs showing this--just search the net), and consistent color at varying angles. It does lend on the blue side of the hue (cool temperature), which can't be dialed out with white balance. But again, you would never notice unless you have this side by side with a high end monitor or comparing pantone standards. It is still best in class.
GRAPHICS:
The Acer AS1830T-Series (except for the AMD ones which use ATI), use Intel HD with shared video ram of 128MB. While this is better than the older Intel GMA 4500 of the last generation, it is not a substitute for dedicated graphics or integrated graphic chips. It is enough power to help render HD video off the web and use the HDMI on the laptop to play video content on your big screen monitor, it will not play games with any kind of authority. It will render 3D imagines in software like Chief Architecture, Adobe CS5 and such but not like one would be use to on a desktop. Again, this is an ultra portable and I don't think many people will be trying to use it for these things on the couch/bed/airport lobby.
KEYBOARD/TOUCH PAD:
This is Acers short coming. The keyboard has been slightly improved over the last gen (1810), but only with layout. It still has some flex and even though the keys are large enough not to miss key often, they are chiclit style and don't have enough tactile feedback to use efficiently. Even still, there are worse designs out there and in this price range I say Acer rates mid-level. One complaint I read a lot about is that Acer moved the keyboard forward to accommodate a flush battery. This limits palm rest area and reduced the touch pad size. My personal preference is I like it better. I would rather have a flush battery and actually don't like to rest my palms on the leading edge of the laptop. The touch pad is an Alps version. Small, and not well designed. Acer has gone the multi touch/swipe way which is not well executed. When scrolling the touch pad often locks with an `action' function making if painfully difficult to simply scroll down/up or across the screen with the pointer without it locking. Also the left and right buttons have a loud stiff click. Unfortunately there is no `off' button to this multi jester function and one must adapt to it. My answer is a portable mouse when I can. And again, it is not the worst in the business, but improvement is in order for Acer.
SIZE/WEIGHT/CHASSIS:
One of the best features of the Acer is how compact and light it is for being nearly a full PC. At 3.1 lbs it is very easy to handle. You can pick it up by the corner and hardly know you are holding anything. Not much bigger than most netbooks. Once you have this in your hands it feels even thinner than the 1 inch spec sheet says. I also like that Acer keeps the 6-cell battery almost flush so there is no huge protruding appendage sticking out the back or angled down .Its reinforced plastic casing has an aluminum skin on the top edge and Acer has improved stress points over last gen (1810), so there is less flex and seam separation between the upper and lower halves and screen surround.
RAM:
RAM and HDD can be accessed by a removable cover on the bottom. HDD is a 2.5 inch Serial ATA drive with a maximum thickness of 9.5mm. the higher capacity drives over 640GB are 12mm in thickness and will not fit-(cover won't close). Also under this cover is the PCI-e 1x16 but Acer does not include this on most models. Misleading specs has Acer stating 4GB max ram capabilities. The Intel Arrandale Ultra Low Voltage (UM) versions can accept up to 8GB DDR3 RAM, 4GB x 4GB 204-pin SODIMM. The AS1830T's come packaged with PC3-10600 RAM (1333MHz) instead of the norm 8500 (1066MHz) RAM. When upgrading I recommend you upgrade to like same. While you can mix speeds it is not the best practice. If you are disposing of all factory ram you can re-install the PC3-8500 and it will work fine, but if you are only replacing one of the two sticks you should use the faster PC3-10600 version to match. Whether you go with 1066MHz or 1333MHz is redundant as the Intel Arrandale UM's only read PC3-800 and will automatically downgrade the speed. Cost between PC3-8500 and PC3-10600 is roughly the same, the problem is finding 4GB sticks in the PC3-10600 version. I have mostly used Crucial but have also used Kingston, Corsair, and Patriot Signature without cause. Plus all these brands offer lifetime warranties.
PORTS and WIRELESS:
Acer is loaded with connection abilities both wired and wireless. Wireless toggling is handled by soft keys now instead of hard keys (FN with F3). The 68U118 offers the new Bluetooth 3.0 +HS which use the collocated 802.11 for speeds up to 24Mb/sec when communicating with another Bluetooth 3.0 devise such as the Samsung Galaxy cell phone. Other AS1830T models use the Bluetooth 2.1 or can have Bluetooth added like in the AS1830T-3505. WAN uses Draft N in all models which are pretty standard these days. Acer runs the antenna around the screen giving better signal lock and very strong connections. For wired connections you have full HDMI that carries digital 5.1 surround with a 1080P picture, analog VGA for those older monitors, Ethernet RJ45 plug with Gigabit connection speeds (very rare in this class), multimedia card reader, Audio and Mic out and 3 USB 2.0 ports--two on the left and one on the right. The only disappointments for me are the Arrandale UM doesn't support the USB 3.0 protocol and Acer doesn't offer e-SATA thru a USB. Also Acer doesn't keep a USB alive during sleep modes to keep things like cell phones or keyboards charging/running. It is important to note while the Arrandale UM support PCI-e 1x16, Acer doesn't solder the connector to all PC boards. So far it has been absent on all 3 of my USA models. AT&T is offering a subvented i3 model, (AS1830T-3505 with less ram--2gb and smaller 6-cell battery --4400mAh), with WWAN but I haven't found this model for sale otherwise. My 68U118 I purchased in Europe does have the PCI-e which I use to connect a 32GB SSD for running Google Chrome (Android).WINDOWS ENVIRONMENT:
This uses Microsoft Windows Operating system version 7 Home Premium in 64-bit form. By now I'm sure all of us are familiar with this version. You can upgrade it over the air to Professional if you need additional features H/P doesn't provide, or you can do a full upgrade to Ultimate from DVD at full upgrade price. Acer does not include a recovery DVD; instead they, (along with all PC manufacturers), partition the hard drive. The internal hard disc drive will have a hidden partition that keeps a factory image and you can recover or reload windows and Acer driver sets from here. This is not a perfect system and you would still want to make a restore disc. I have had times when the partition is not bootable. This partition also takes up precious space, from 20GB up to 40GB. If you do decide to back up your factory image or upgrade to Win 7 ultimate remember there is no optical drive on the Acer, you would need to hook up a USB optical drive or convert the CD/DVD to a USB bootable flash drive.Acer also loads many-many trial versions of third-party software companies. This clogs and chokes the hard drive and you may find it also slows things down. This, however, is a necessary evil as subsidized software on your desktop brings the overall price down from Acer. One can simply go into the programs and remove any unnecessary/unwanted applications. That's my two cents worth, hope it helps those considering the Acer 11.6 inch models :D
Click Here to see more reviews about: Acer Aspire TimelineX AS1830T-68U118 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
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