page-4 | Acer AS5810 Timeline - Newest technology and superb battery life in stunning design | Laptops

Acer AS5810 Timeline - Newest technology and superb battery life in stunning design - Physical aspects continued

Tuesday, 25 August 2009 15:18 Allan Hansen

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Article Index
Acer AS5810 Timeline - Newest technology and superb battery life in stunning design
Package contents
Physical aspects
Physical aspects continued
Benchmark
Benchmark continued
Conclusion
All Pages

Page 4 of 7

The right side

The left side

Overview

There is plenty of connectivity here; the average family and youth will probably appreciate the SD card reader for their camera, the geekier individual will appreciate the HDMI output to connect his PC to TV with audio, and finally a VGA output for e.g. projectors. Lovely with the whole package!

Diodes

The diodes are mostly – the one at the front being the exception, shining with either an orange or blue light depending on the power status – fairly discreet and have different colours. There is a diode for the power button, along with all the other standard diodes.

Keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard is sizeable with glossy keys which are pretty silent and very smooth when pressed. There is also a numpad, perfect for those who work with numbers. Thumbs up to Acer for including this.
The only other thing I could wish for is some backlighting in order to use the keyboard in the dark as well.
The touchpad is asymmetrically located at the left, indicating Acer expects you to control it with your left hand. In my opinion it should have been placed in the middle, as many people prefer to control the touchpad with their right hand.

The mouse buttons have been merged into one larger button. It happens to work really well on this model since they made a sort of barrier in the middle that you cannot press. Thus the buttons are still separated, albeit invisibly.

Display

The display has just the right size for a mobile notebook; neither too large and unwieldy, nor too small and annoying. It is razor sharp with good backlighting that has various levels so you can adjust it to the how light is it around you. It does not suffer from glare too much either, making it a really good display in many ways.
It will undoubtedly be good for watching movies, both because of the format but also the size, perfect for a plane or train ride. The display has the 16:9 aspect ratio which is perfect for movies, and it sports HD (High-Definition) as well.

As a new part of our reviews we now test displays for pixel errors and faults in the backlighting, using a program called MonitorTest. It works by, for example, blackening the entire display which will expose pixel errors, i.e. areas that do not change colour. This will also allow you to see if the backlighting is uneven.

I found no errors in the form of dead pixels after a thorough examination. In my opinion is has a very nice and even backlighting, which makes it a pleasure to look at. No errors on this model.

Sound and speakers

This computer has a couple of really good speakers, certainly good enough for playing music. That will eat up some battery life, of course, but some music is always nice, especially when you work outside.

It plays both treble and bass really well, but is probably more suited for music than movies. I think it may have some trouble with sinister soundtracks and the like, as opposed to more standard, balanced sound. In any case we are not exactly dealing with a stereo system, but it definitely handles audio much better than the average notebook.

Noise, heat and power consumption

The computer is pretty silent even at full load, except for a faint buzzing. It is nowhere near loud enough to be annoying though.

When it comes to heat, everything is perfect as Acer advertised. The notebook is fairly cool at the bottom, even after longer use. The small plastic duds also enable it to stand firm on a bumpy train ride or the like.

It should be fairly good at saving power with plenty of functions to that effect, so a long battery life is pretty much guaranteed, something I am looking forward to experience.