*UPDATE* New actual pics here
http://www.notebookforums.com/showpo...1&postcount=15

Ok so these are just first impression since I just got it yesterday and I'm no hardcore techie so don't expect anything great. You've probably read the specs and pics so I'll leave those out. A lot of it is also like the TravelMate (screen, etc) so I won't talk about that much.s

PERFORMANCE, ETC...
So the CPU seems pretty fast. A little bit slower than a Pentium-M of the same clock. But the AMD is cheaper so that's a plus.

Sandra's Arithmetic test was a little over 4000 MIPS if that matters to you.

The filesystem is FAT32 which is odd. Just like the TravelMate I guess. I converted one of the 2 partition to NTFS since it is easily better. The other one will be used as storage for Linux/Windows so I left it. The FAT32 is faster yes... but the benefits of NTFS make up for the longer loading times. Also the same recovery partition is there.

The memory is a little slow but can be upgraded to DDR400 if you have the cache. AMD's are better with the memory bandwidth than Intel processors so it is not THAT much slower than the DDR2 533.

Overall, very good. If a 2GHz Pentium-M is a 10/10 than a 2GHz Turion is a 9/10.

BATTERY / HEAT
The battery seems pretty good to me. I can get about 3 hours 35 minutes with internet / word processing. With Prime95 doing a stress test I get about 1:50 minutes. Not bad at all. Although... I have undervolted the processor to minimum .950v / maximum 1.325v so that makes a little difference. The minumum clock speed is 800mHz.

The heat seems pretty low. I still have no idea how to monitor motherboard / CPU temperatures so I cannot give any real info. The touchpad gets slightly warm along with where my palms rest. It is not uncomfortable at all, you can just feel it. The keyboard doesn't really seem to get warm. Keep in mind I am undervolting so this my improve it a bit.

9/10

OTHER STUFF

DVD drive is pretty cool since it is a slot load. It supports everything, even DVD-RAM which is pretty dead now. It's pretty noisy sometimes. 7/10

The fan is pretty quiet. In a silent room it doesn't bother me at all and with a little ambient noise it isn't noticable. 8/10

The wireless is great. It has awesome range due to Acer's booster thing. 10/10

GRAPHICS

The X700 is great. Best you are going to get unless you go for a 6800GT in a dell (unless there's X800 somewhere). But anyways... I just ran Brothers in Arms at max details at 1680 x 1050 and it was nice and smooth. Seems pretty good. Haven't tested FPS with HL2 or Far Cry.

3DMark2005 score - 2378
3DMark2003 score - 5968
Pretty nice. This is with the stock drivers and no overclocking done. Seems better than the TravelMate I think. I might update this when I get around to tweaking a bit. 8/10

The screen looks great. 1680 x 1050 is perfect resolution for me. Not too small at all and gives enough space and detail. Great for image editing. It's nice and bright and I'm glad that it is not the glossy type. Obviously none of this sparkle crap like the Asus / Dell 's. 9/10

Cost $2499 CDN. About $2000 USD. Not a bad deal. This comes with the standard 1 year limited warrant. You can get an extended 3 year warranty or ADP 3 year warranty for a couple hundred more. This price did include a free bluetooth mouse (painted in the ferrari colors), windows xp pro, and norton 2005.

I am very pleased with this laptop. The design is very nice and the performance is quite good for it's cost.

Overall - 9/10.

If you are thinking about getting one I reccommend that you do. No regrets here.

Thanks for the review

Got a couple of questions

Could you keep us updated on how warm / hot the palm rest get & how loud the fan is.

This what drove me to take back my Ferrari 3400 [Unbearable Heat & Noise] This is the deal breaker

Any pictures if possible, particulary I just want to see a shot of the AC adapter [Size] , and also a side shot with the AC plugged in [To see how I can plug my lock and AC at same time]

How is the included Bluetooth mouse? [size / comfort]

Also how many partitons are there & their respective sizes?

Do you know the speed of the DVD Burner? Its not listed anywhere

How does the rubberized coating inside feel? Is notebook is backheavy just like the TM 8100? Any Flex on the screen? Also does the build feel solid?

Is the memory DDR or DDR2?

Last question is the speakers, PolarTW noted they were superb and very loud, Your thoughts?


Thanks in advance

Great job! I can't wait to get my hands on one... I am curious about the heat/noise as well.

Turion is roughly as fast as Pentium M, wonder how could you notice that it was slower. Which application was slower?

DDR2-533 might SOUND faster than DDR-400, but it ISN'T. Latency is much higher, and todays CPUs aren't able to use it's higher (compared to DDR) throughput. It might consume a little less than DDR though.

You might wonder why does Intel use it, when it is actually slower than DDR... Well, maybe because it sounds faster...

P.S.
AMD stated that it sees no perfomance gain to switch to DDR2, at least not until DDR2-667 so it wouldn't support it.

The noise is not unbearable at all. I hardly even notice it when I'm in an almost silent room. It doesn't bother me at all. In class I can't really hear it due to a bit of background noise.

The heat still doesn't bother me at all. It's not hot. It's just slightly warm under the palms. The touchpad heat isn't very noticeable under normal use unless you are holding your finger pressed in one place. I can't really notice any head under the keyboard at all. During internet / word processing the temperature is usually around 40 celsius or lower. During gaming it can get up to around 60.

The bluetooth mouse is pretty much the same size as a regular mouse. It took me a day to get used to it but I like it now. Pretty responsive. Hasn't run out of batteries yet so that's a good sign. Picture here if you haven't seen it.



I like the rubber. It feels like your palms are resting on something slightly softer than hard plastic. It's not really sticky rubber or anything. Dust doesn't stick.

The dvd drive is a DVD-RAM drive. It supports +/-RW. Speeds are:
5X Speed DVD-RAM Writing
8X Speed DVD-R Writing
4X Speed DVD-RW Writing
24X Speed CD-R Writing
16X Speed CD-RW Writing
8X Speed DVD+R Writing
4X Speed DVD+RW Writing
24X Speed CD-ROM Reading
8X Speed DVD-ROM Reading

If by flex on the screen you mean if I try to bend the top then yes there is a bit.

I can't really tell if it's backheavy like a TravelMate since I never picked one up. If I hold it up it feels pretty balanced. Maybe the carbon fiber top lowered the weight a little.

The memory is DDR333 like I said above.

The speakers... well I've never been a fan of notebook speakers and always use headphones / speakers. They don't sound tinny or anything but I just don't like the lack of bass. They don't go loud enough for me. I am going to purchase an Audigy 2 ZS for notebooks so the speaker issue doesn't really matter to me. For notebook speakers I guess they are pretty average. I've heard some horrible ones and these are way, way better. Not as good as some Toshiba ones I've heard though and I'm sure any notebook with a tiny subwoofer would sound better.

As for the CPU I'm just going by the benchmarks that I've done compared to ones that I have seen for the Pentium-M. A 2GHz pentium-M seems to slightly outperform the Turion during gaming and certain benchmarks. The Turion performed better during some intensive application tests. As for real world performance, I am guessing that the difference isn't noticeable.

I have no pictures but the AC adapter is about 5-6 inches long and 2-3 inches wide. Not that gigantic or anything. Smaller than my old Toshiba one. The cable lock is about an inch away from the AC adapter plug so I'm sure it will work.

Also how many partitons are there & their sizes on the hard drive?

By Flex I meant when opening and closing the screen if it felt loose?

I can live with warm [Ferrari 3400 got so hot I would burn my hand!]

Pretty much sealed the deal, now to order next week

thank you so much for the review, that has helped a lot. How would you rate the build quality of the laptop? Does it feel strong and sturdy, or does it noticably flex anywhere? Thanks a lot

Two 45GB FAT32 partitions ( I converted one of them to NTFS, VERY slight loss of speed but NTFS is easily worth that)
One 3-4GB hidden recovery partition for use with the Acer Recovery software.

When I open/close the lid it feels very strong and I can see no flex of any kind.

Overall, the whole laptop feels very sturdy to me. It seems very well put together and nothing on it seems flimsy/loose/weak/whatever.

None of my thoughts have changed yet. No problems with anything. Still recommended.

techn9ne: Great review, thanks for doing that. I have two questions for you. Are the dvd and hd on the same ide channel? What is the wireless chipset and does it support wpa2? Thanks.

Can you post some actual pictures ??

yes, now

i dont have anything to take the pictures with sorry. There are some actual pics posted somewhere on these forums. Ill get around to the wireless stuff later.

Does the system come with a full recovery disk? Or do you have to use that recovery partition?

would a single 1GB DDR-400 memory stick be able to fit into it after taking out the 2 DDR-333 sticks? Or would I have to get 2 DDR 400 512MB sticks?

I think the DVD and HDD are on different channels. There is a dual channel IDE. But don't take my word for it because I don't know what I'm talking about.

The wireless is Broadcom 802.11g... from what I can tell it does support WPA2. Again, not quite sure how to tell but I read on some website that it does.

It comes with two recovery CD's. They are used to restore either your current backed up image or the base system install. I have not actually used them myself but this is what they are said to do. I think they use the recovery partition... or you can burn the backup to a DVD. There is more in the Acer Travelmate 8104 review thread about this.

Yes, a 1GB stick would fit into one slot. So you can have 2GB total memory.

And now what you've been waiting for... pictures that I took!



I think the red part has some kind of wireless range booster in it... called Acer SignalUp.


The bootscreen. There is a nice Ferrari drive-by sound as Windows boots up.