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Despite the lovely spring weather, we have still been busy working away on another review and now take Acer through the motions.
Acer have polished up their otherwise sleek Timeline series, which has now received an X. That means a hardware update and a redesign of the exterior. Instead of the familiar metallic grey it now features a brushed black, and that suits it rather well. We are not talking about an extensive overhaul, but instead a few well-chosen upgrades to an already great Timeline series

The product was kindly lent to us by Acer



Specifications

Category
Business, Office, Students

Processor  
Intel® Core i5-430M/i5-520M/i5-540M processor (3 MB L3 cache, 2.26/2.40/2.53 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.53/2.93/3.06 GHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, 35 W), supporting Intel® 64 architecture, Intel® Smart Cache

Chipset
Mobile Intel® HM55 Express Chipset

RAM
4GB DDR3 1066 MHz

Hard drive
500GB

Display
14" HD 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ LED-backlit TFT LCD, supporting simultaneous multi-window viewing
Mercury free, environment friendly
16:9 aspect ratio
Super-slim design

Sound card and speakers
Optimized 3rd Generation Dolby® Home Theater®8 audio enhancement, featuring Dolby® Digital Live, Dolby® Pro Logic® IIx, Dolby® Headphone, Dolby® Natural Bass, Dolby® Sound Space Expander, Dolby® Inverse Filtering, Dolby® High Frequency Enhancer technologies9
High-definition audio support
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) support for digital speakers
MS-Sound compatible
Built-in microphone

GPU
Intel® HD Graphics with 128 MB of dedicated system memory, supporting Microsoft® DirectX® 10(* depending on size of system memory)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 with Switchable™ Graphics technology, up to 40915 MB of HyperMemory™ (1024 MB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM, up to 30676 MB of shared system memory), supporting Unified Video Decoder (UVD), OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11, OpenGL® 3.1, OpenCL™ 1.1 (* depending on size of system memory)

Battery
ACPI 3.0 CPU power management standard: supports Standby and Hibernation power-saving modes 66.6 W 6000 mAh 6-cell Li-ion standard battery pack:
up to 8-hour battery life

Optical drive
DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM - integrated

Connectivity
4x USB 2.0 ports
1x HDMI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) support
1x external display (VGA) port
1x Headphones/speaker/line-out jack with S/PDIF support
1x Microphone-in jack
1x Ethernet (RJ-45) port
1x DC-in jack for AC adapter
1x 5-in-1 card reader

Wireless Connectivity
WLAN:
Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™
Acer InviLink™ 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™
Supporting Acer SignalUp™ wireless technology
WPAN:
Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR
WWAN:
UMTS/HSPA at 850/900/1900/2100 MHz and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE at 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, upgradable to 7.2 Mb/s HSDPA and 5.7 Mb/s HSUPA (for 3G models)

LAN:
Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready

Dimensions
342 (W) x 245 (D) x 24/25.4 (H) mm
2.2 kg incl. battery

Support
Support is available via Acer

Warranty
1 year

Operating system
Windows 7

Software included
Acer Backup Manager
Acer ePower Management
Acer eRecovery Management
Microsoft® Office Personal 2007 (Service Pack 2)
Microsoft® Office Trial (Service Pack 2)
Microsoft® Works SE 9
Microsoft® Works 9
Microsoft® Works 8.5
Adobe® Flash® Player 10
Adobe® Reader® 9.1
eSobi™
Google™ Setup
Google Toolbar™
Norton™ Online Backup

Security
McAfee® Internet Security Suite 2009 Trial
McAfee® Virus Definitions
MyWinLocker®

Multimedia
Acer Arcade™ Deluxe
NTI Media Maker™

Gaming
Oberon GameZone Acer Edition
WildTangent® Acer Edition
Communication and ISP
Acer Video Conference Manager
Microsoft® Silverlight™
Windows Live™ Essentials — Wave 3.2 (Mail, Photo Gallery, Live™ Messenger, Movie Maker, Writer)

Utilities and tools
Acer Accessory Store Acer Assist
Acer Identity Card
Acer Registration
Acer Updater
eBay® shortcut 2009
Netflix shortcut

Package contents

There are various items in the package, including manuals, warranty certificate and an Ethernet dongle that you can insert into a USB port. We do not quite understand its presence, for the laptop does have an Ethernet port and the dongle is not particularly long.

Included
- AC adapter
- Manuals and warranty certificate
- Ethernet dongle


Construction and Design

The first impression



Acer is a popular brand, and there is certainly a reason for that. Their Timeline series is incredibly sleek and has garnered much praise within the business and office segments. If anything, the design is now even more stylish and is likely to appeal to an even wider group of users.
Their original Timeline series had a grey look, which has been replaced by a black one. The lid is now in black brushed aluminium with a bit of texture that is primarily visible in sunlight. The edges are round, giving it a softer look, which looks very professional along with the Acer logo in silver on the lid. The inside of the lid is more glossy, as is the display itself. That does give rise to problems with glare, and you pretty much use it as a mirror in sunlight.  




On the surface of the inside we have the brushed grey metallic look, combined with a black surface framing the black keyboard. This is definitely a business device and is sure to appeal to many as a professional and secure choice.




The power button is also specially designed – black, round and with rills around it. It fits in well with the rest of the design and appears to have been chosen with care. Some may be of the opinion that it is located in the wrong side, namely at the left whereas you usually find it at the front or towards the right. The speakers are right in the middle of the top, located under a chequered net with the words “Dolby Home Theather” on it. Seems like a good choice of partner, and one that automatically raises your expectations of the sound.






The trackpad is silvery as well, framed by a grey/silver lining. It has a very smooth look and seems quite soft. Below it is the touchbar, which again for some reason is not separated into two buttons as most people tend to prefer. The standard stickers have also been given their place, which sadly detracts a little from the otherwise positive first impression

The lid





The lid is incredibly thin and very rigid. As noted already, it is primarily black and this is what creates that distinguished look. On the inside is a webcam as usual, and despite the device measuring only 14 inches, it seems a lot bigger because the display really takes up most of the space. It is a great move to utilise as much of the space as possible, because that helps justify the size of the rest of the laptop.

The hinges are sturdy; at least you cannot open up the device with just one hand. I do believe they will last, and they should have no trouble keeping up the lid on a bumpy train ride and the like.

The front



At the front is the card reader and some diodes.

The rear



The rear is where you insert the battery – the lid also extends down here when the device is open, so there is no space for any ports.

The bottom



The bottom is where you access the hardware, but we will not be getting into that.

The right side



The left side



Overview



I cannot praise devices that have adopted HDMI enough. It is just great with the HDMI output so you can watch movies on your HDTV at home. They also managed to fit in no less than four USB ports, which is almost luxurious along with the optical drive. Perfect.

Diodes




The diodes are blue and look great against the black background. They shine quite brightly but work well for the device. Luckily they stuck to only a few colours – any more, and the device would look too much like a Christmas tree. Some makers seemingly choose diode colours at random, but since they do shine all the time, I think it actually matters.

They are located on either side at the top as well as down by the touchpad, indicating the status of standard things like battery, Bluetooth, WiFi etc.

Keyboard and touchpad




The keyboard is large and almost goes from edge to edge. The keys are nice and big, making them easy to hit. They have a great feel to them and provide just the right amount of resistance.
I think you will quickly get used to type with this keyboard – it used to be that laptop keyboards were discarded as poor and worthless, but I insist this is just a myth as many are actually very good.  
The touchpad is nice and big, and very clearly framed so you do not accidentally go beyond its borders. It is quite smooth as well, and you can scroll at the right side which is useful when surfing.
The bar combines the two buttons and is a hopeless as ever. You cannot click it in the middle but instead have to use the very edges. They would have been better off splitting it up in the middle, something that would not necessarily ruin the overall design.

Display





The display measures 14 inches and has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. It is LED-backlit and incredibly crisp. The colours are rich and the picture is beautiful as the colours almost flow together. The result is a colourful and clear display with great contrast.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of glare as well, since it is a glossy display. It is hard to use in sunlight, especially with maximum brightness. This is something you just have to get used to, and while most people probably can, it can be rather annoying when you are in place where the ambient light changes all the time, such as a train.

We have started testing displays for pixel errors and faults in the backlighting. For this we use a program called MonitorTest. It works by, for example, blackening the entire display such that dead pixels – fields that do not change colour on the screen – are exposed. It also allows you to see if the backlighting is uneven.

No problems here. The display appears to be evenly lit and without faults.

Sound and speakers

The speakers are decent and while perhaps not suited for party-level music, they are fine for some radio and YouTube songs. You will still be better off with a couple of external speakers or headphones, but they still managed to get fairly good sound out of this device. What are typically lacking are the deeper notes, which is probably a bigger issue for genres like hiphop and electronica. In any case, the audial aspect is rarely the most important for businessmen.

Noise, heat and power consumption

As per the design philosophy, the device is very silent; it has to be able to run for a long time and should be suited for office work. Because of this it barely makes a sound, and the fan never gets out of control, regardless of stress.
In line with the above, the device does not get too hot either. Even at full performance did it never get very hot, and you can easily sit with it in your lap (though we do not recommend it).
You can tone down the power consumption dramatically by switching to the integrated GPU or increase performance by instead using the discrete graphics card. This means potential battery life can be very high, and Acer are generally quite good at making powersaving settings and functions.


Benchmark

All benchmark settings are run at highest performance settings on the laptop. Otherwise no settings have been tampered with.

Windows Vista Experience Index



We can see the device gets a very nice WEI score. That only adds to our expectations, of course.

I have decided to compare it with the Novabook Airis Pro, which costs approximately £50 more than the Acer. It will be interesting to see if Acer can get the same job done for a smaller amount of money. Do note that one reason for the higher price is that Novabook has an SSD rather than a conventional hard drive. In fact I expect the Acer to perform better in the other aspects.

The Novabook Airis Pro device had the following specifications:

Category
Business, Students

Processor
Mobile DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo T6600, 2200 Mhz (11 x 200)

Chipset
Intel Cantiga GL40

RAM
4 GB

Hard drive
40 GB SSD Kingston

Display
15.4 inch / 1280 x 800 LCD (WXGA)

Sound card & speakers
Intel HDMI 828011B ICH9 High Definition Audio Controller

GPU
Intel GMA 4500M

Battery
6-celled lithium-ion-battery (Li-Ion)

Optical drive
Optiarc DVD RW

I/Os
2x USB 2.0 ports
1x HDMI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) support
1x External display (VGA) port
1x Headphones/speaker/line-out jack with S/PDIF support
1x Microphone-in jack
1x Ethernet (RJ-45) port
1x DC-in jack for AC adapter
1x eSATA port
1x Multimedia card reader
1x Webcam Crystal Eye
1x Microphone

Wireless connectivity
Wireless 802.11b/g
Ethernet LAN 10/100/1000

Dimensions
3.3 cm x 35.7 cm x 25.7 cm
ca. 2.7 kg including battery

Operating system
Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

Boot times and out of standby



Boot and out of standby times are measured from when the power button is pressed until the Windows desktop appears.

Both devices start up pretty quick, managing to do so below the magical 1-minute mark.


Battery life



Idle times are measured at the lowest power profile on the models while Classic times are measured at the highest performance profile. Both are tested with BatteryEater 2005 so as to find the maximum battery life at the given settings.

You can see battery life is one of Acer’s stronger suits. It is clearly superior, which is good news for people who like to travel with their laptop. The battery lasts long enough for a train or plane ride, which allows you to get some work done.
The device we tested is a so-called PR sample, and as such not an entirely finished product. In our case, this meant the battery was not quite up to snuff, with some of the cells operating below optimal capacity. As such, the actual battery like is sure to better than shown here.

The processor

SuperPi



Super Pi calculates the number Pi with 1 million decimals. The result is a time in seconds, meaning that the lower the number, the better. This can be used for direct comparison with other laptops that have run the same test.

Acer’s processor handles number crunching remarkably well and is a fair bit faster than the Novabook. A very convincing result.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic & Multimedia



SiSoft Sandra’s Whetstone and Drystone benchmark tests the processor’s ability to do pure number crunching, which occurs during gaming or different forms of picture editing. The measure is in Mflops (Millions Floating Point Operations Per Second) – the higher, the better.

The multimedia test in SiSoft Sandra calculates on a 2D figure. The result (it/s) is Mandelbrot iterations per second, and the bigger the better.

Again we see the Acer doing almost twice as well; there is no doubt the Core i5 or i7 processor is well worth the extra cost. The new Core 2010 processors are really quite spectacular, dramatically outperforming normal Duo Core processors as they can handle more processes simultaneously.

The Novabook did not run the multimedia test, but we can see the Acer gets a fairly good score. No surprises here either.

RAM SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth



Sisoft Sandra’s Memory Bandwidth benchmark is used to measure the speed of the RAM – the higher the value, the better.

The RAM also perform better in the Acer. This is however quite natural as it is DDR3 vs. DDR2 RAM in the Novabook.

Hard drive performance - SiSoft Sandra Harddisk Read



Sisoft Sandra’s hard drive test module is used to measure the performance of the hard drive. Sisoft Sandra runs a number of tests on the surface of the hard drive and calculates the average reading speed.

Acer’s hard drive performs well for a 5400RPM drive, but this test really shows why the Novabook costs more: the incredibly fast SSD. The performance you can get out of them is amazing, and once they reach a lower price level, we are sure to see them in many more devices.


GPU performance - 3Dmark



The 3Dmark tests show the performance in DirectX 9, and paint a picture of the performance in newer games and applications. No tests have been run in DirectX 10.1 (which both cards support).

The Acer has an ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 GPU that you can switch to when needed, rather than use the powersaving but low-performing integrated graphics. As such the device can actually perform quite well when needed – it may not be a dedicated gaming device, but it can certainly handle some mainstream games and that helps make it more of an all-round device.
We can clearly see the Novabook falling behind here. Well done by Acer.

CineBench R11.5



Here are scores of various CineBench tested devices. You can see our device does pretty well. We will be doing direct comparisons in the future when we have tested more laptops in this benchmark.

Overall performance



The PCMark 05 results can be compared directly with other laptops that have run the same PCMark version. The program produces a score from a test that includes the performance of the processor, RAM, hard drive, GPU, etc.

As expected, we see Acer getting the highest score in the overall test. All in all you have to conclude Acer have put together a pretty great product.

OpenOffice – mostly for students



Since we have tested several laptops which are so well-suited for student use, I have decided to run some tests in OpenOffice (freeware which has the same functions as Microsoft’s Office bundle).

Here are some load times to give you a bit of insight into how quickly the computer loads a standard application like OpenOffice. Most can compare it with the PCs they normally work on.


Gaming

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Pripyat



Here you can see how powerful Acer’s notebook really is. It can actually reach a very good FPS in this game, which goes to show it can run quite smoothly. The FPS of a game like this should preferably be greater than 60. It is a somewhat demanding game though, and the Acer is not a gamer device in case. I still think the result is good, and I did not expect the gameplay to be so smooth.




Conclusion

Acer is a major player, and you often see quality decline when companies grow too large. This is far from the case here; Acer have once again delivered a sublime product that fits well into a great series, TimelineX.

It has a lot of advantages. They have updated the design and made it darker, more elegant and stylish, which allows it to appeal not just to professionals but indeed a wider user group. It is thin and the weight is attractive, so there is no doubt a lot of focus is on mobility. It is also filled with the newest hardware, making it an attractive partner for business trips. The new Core i5 processor is a great addition and will allow a doubling of performance compared to a standard Duo Core CPU.

As it is a laptop after all, it is nice to see the focus on mobility. The icing on the cake is that it can do a lot more than simple surfing and word processing. The discrete GPU ensures you can indulge in some light gaming, or other graphics-intensive tasks. What we have here is thus a fantastic all-round device.

The price is perhaps a bit steep, but the product is well worth it. Of course “steep” is a relative term, but this is not a budget product.

You quickly forgive Acer for once again integrating the touchpad buttons into a single bar, which is about the only thing you can criticise here. If you are after a professional device for an intensive workday, this is definitely one of the heavyweights in the segment and you have to commend Acer for once again showing why they are one of the largest and most popular players in the industry.

   

Pros
- Design
- Materials
- Display
- Weight
- Quality
- Hardware

Cons
- Touchpad bar











Battery:	3,5 / 5
Graphics:	4 / 5
Construction:	5 / 5
Mobility:	5 / 5
Software:	4 / 5
CPU Performance:	4,5 / 5
Innovation:	4,5 / 5
Price:	4 / 5
Design:	4,5 / 5
Weight:	4,5 / 5
Performance:	4,5 / 5
Overall:	4,5 / 5