Acer Aspire 3810T laptop review

The Aspire 3810T is the second laptop we’ve seen from Acer’s Timeline series. As with the Aspire 4810T, this machine features a compact and slim design, and aims to offer all day battery life.

The Aspire 3810T is smaller than it’s sibling, featuring a 13.3-inch screen, and is a good compromise between size and usability. It offers sharp image quality, and is one of the brighter screens we’ve seen. It uses LED backlighting to good effect, with good colours and contrast, while also conserving power.

Power efficiency is a theme that runs throughout the 3810T. It uses an integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics card, helping with battery life, although compromising on 3D capabilities. That said, it’ll still run office applications without trouble, and play back movies or browse the internet smoothly. Just don’t plan on gaming in your spare time.

It’s the 1.4GHz ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) Intel Core 2 Duo processor that really makes a difference to power consumption, however. We managed to run office applications for a staggering 682 minutes when out and about. It comes at a cost, however, as office performance suffers, and there’s noticeable lag when running a few applications at the same time.

Unlike most super-thin laptops, the 3810T remains impressively cool to the touch – with ventilation aided by the snappily titled Laminar Wall Jet cooling system – a technology developed by Intel. It works in a similar way to the cooling technology found on jet engines – which aims to prevent the high temperatures found inside the engine from escaping to the outside. As such, it’s a comfortable machine to work with on your knees, and also remains eerily quiet during use.

The thin chassis is stylish, and has a quality feel lacking in many of Acer’s other products. It’s further helped by premium materials, including an aluminium lid. The light 1.7kg weight also makes it a machine you can take with you wherever you go.

The keyboard offers good quality, although the raised keys can take time to adjust to, and won’t suit all users. It’s quiet and comfortable to type on, however. The touchpad supports gesture control, making it easier to zoom, and there’s a button to deactivate it when typing.

As with several other thin and light laptops – such as MSI's X340 - there’s no optical drive. The three USB ports are more generous though, and Bluetooth lets you connect peripherals wirelessly. External displays can be connected via either VGA or HDMI ports.

A 5-in-1 memory card reader makes it easy to transfer files, and 802.11n Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet offer the fastest connections to wireless and fixed networks currently possible.

It’s difficult not to be impressed by the Aspire 3810T. It has faults – with poor office performance the main culprit – but the battery life will more than make up for this for most users. The stylish and quality design is also a bonus.

For more information, visit Acer.