Laptop Thoughts: Acer TimelineX 4820T: A Perfect Ultrathin Laptop?

"Pulling the 14-inch Acer TimelineX 4820T from its box, one thing went through our mind: this could be the perfect thin and light laptop. The $717 system is about an inch thick, weighs only 4.7 pounds, and still has an onboard DVD drive. And unlike the past Acer Timelines and their sissy ULV processors, it has a standard voltage Core i3-350M CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive."

With very impressive out-of-the-box specs, design and build compromises impact the overall rating of the TimeLineX 4820T. While the Core i3-350M processor is a screamer, making this system a possible choice for everyday use, the chiclet keyboard leaves something to be desired, exhibiting a great amount of flex and squeak when typing. Less than perfect keyboard = probably not an all-day machine. And, the LCD display, at a glossy 1366x768 resolution, has some problems with viewing angles outside of direct head-on. Battery life is excellent, with over five (5) hours of usage in Engadget's battery rundown video testing. So, the bottom line is that this is a very good laptop for $717 ($799 with ATI Radeon HD 5650 graphics), but as for approaching perfection in an ultrathin laptop, Acer is not quite there yet.