Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5830TG-6402 Pro Reviews

We can't promise whether you'll love or loathe the TimelineX series' industrial, color-blocked design, but we'll say this much: this mid-range 15-inch laptop grew on us. We're finicky about our laptops (aren't we all?), and yet we quickly grew comfy with it nonetheless. It might not be the prettiest notebook on the shelf at Best Buy, but the sturdy keyboard and reliable trackpad alone make this a sensible choice -- and that's not even delving into the longer-than-average battery life. It's also thinner and lighter than competing models, making it that much easier to schlep around campus (or, you know, from room to room). Still, with the exception of that impressive battery life, the AS5830 is a forgettable machine, with both its performance and design skewing middle-of-the-road. To give just one example, for just a hundred bucks more you could get the HP Envy 14, one of the most stunning notebooks we've seen, with the same processor and 6GB of RAM, along with switchable graphics and a full gigabyte of video memory. And that's not even mentioning the tempting machines that cost the same as the AS5830 or less. Put differently, you can't go wrong with it; we just suspect you can do better.

The Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG is a laptop that has been able to provide a good performance as well a good battery life without compromising on anything in between. This laptop would be a good fit for students, and even some professionals, and anyone else who wants their laptop to pack enough of a performance punch, but at the same time have the laptop last for a long enough time for that punch to count. While Acer could have done with a better screen, say a full HD screen with better viewing angles, this laptop's features are attractive enough to warrant us to suggest this as a very suitable candidate for multimedia users in the market looking for a machine that delivers a performance that more than justifies its asking price.

The Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG-6402 combines an Intel Core i5 processor, Nvidia switchable graphics, and all day battery-life to make it a smart buy for any budget.

Acer has made a few odd decisions and omissions in specifying the TimelineX AS5830TG-640. There’s no Blu-ray for a start, not even playback, which seems strange for a media notebook, and the 5,400rpm hard-drive is slower than we’d like to see. Still, on the flipside you get a discrete GPU and Bluetooth 3.0 as standard. The TimelineX AS5830TG-640 may not be the fastest desktop replacement around, but as a combination of usable size – both of the decent display and well-proportioned keyboard – and portability it’s keenly priced.