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Acer’s Aspire Timeline 5810TG is a strange mix. It uses low-voltage components, which are typically used in lightweight ultra-portables, but its 15.6in screen and 2.4kg weight put it more in line with standard budget laptops. The single-core 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor doesn’t make much sense in a laptop of this size. Although there’s 4GB of RAM, performance was poor, with the 5810TG scoring just 24 overall in our 2D benchmarks. This means it’s fine for general computing, but editing video will be a struggle. Both Intel integrated graphics and ATI Mobility Radeon 4330 graphics chips are installed, and the 5810TG can switch between the two depending on the task at hand. With the ATI graphics, it managed 8.3fps in Call of Duty 4, which is around 6fps slower than we’d expect from this chipset. The slow, single-core processor is almost certainly the culprit. The benefit of having Intel integrated graphics and a low-power processor is that the battery lasts for an impressive six hours and 31 minutes. With the ATI graphics enabled, this falls by about an hour. However, since it’s quite large and heavy, it’s not something you’d want to carry around all day. The 15.6in widescreen display is bright and produced rich, vibrant colours. With decent viewing angles, you can use it comfortably in any position. As with most current laptops it has a resolution of 1,366×768, which gives plenty of desktop space. If you want to watch movies, there’s a built-in DVD drive. The keyboard is responsive and comfortable to type on. The 320GB hard disk is about what we’d expect at this price and gives plenty of space for all your documents.
Long battery life is the Timeline 5810TG’s biggest selling point, but we’d prefer faster components in a laptop of this size. Asus’s K50IJ is a better choice if you want a powerful laptop, while Samsung’s Q320 is lighter to carry around. If you want something really light, Medion’s Akoya E3211 is a good choice.
