Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG Review and feature

Along the same horizontal as the power button, you will find Acer 'P' ("programmable key) button, next to which lies the num lock and caps lock indicators. The back-lit power button is located at the top left corner of the main chassis body. Unlike in other Acer laptop models, like the Acer 5755G ,the screen hinges of the 5830TG are located at either ends, at the rear of the chassis.

 The chassis has an aluminium-plastic finish - the palmrest has a plastic finish while the area surrounding the keyboard has an aluminium finish - and the backlid has a plastic finish. The matte surface, understandably, doesn’t attract fingerprints or smudges, but you should be careful of net getting oily smudges on its surface. While the glossy bezel does attract a lot of fingerprints and smudges, the black glossy appearance of the bezel - especially when contrasted with the lighter silver and blue matte colours - enhances the visual appeal of the laptop. Except the glossy black bezel and the glossy screen, the rest of the TimelineX unit has a matte finish.

 Its body comes in an eye-pleasing, contrasting mix of three colours: blue, silver and black.  The Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5830TG has a sleek design and its edges have an angular look to them - the hinges alone have a cylindrical design.

 The USB 3.0 port You can check on the battery levels, even when the laptop is switched of, by pressing on this button and it's light will shine in the appropriate colour - gone are the days when you had to switch on your laptop just to know how much of the battery life remains. When the laptop is powered on, if this button shines blue, signifies that it is connected to a power supply - similarly when connected to a power source, this button will shine Blue, for when there is more than 30% of the charge remaining; Amber when the charge lies between 10-30%; and finally red, when less than 10% of the charge remains. One such feature is the "Battery indicator" button, located at the front of the laptop, that displays, through various colours, how much of the battery's charge is left, and whether if its charging or not.

 This Acer laptop has a number of other handy features. The battery section at the rear base of the chassis slightly sticks out, giving the TimelineX laptop an elevated design. The Acer 5830TG has a non removable battery. There is a 1.3MP webcam located along the top central section of the screen bezel.

 The inbuilt speaker of the 5830TG forms a single continuous slab that is located along the same horizontal line, and is positioned between the power button and Acer's "programmable key". I have to say that the overall build quality of the TimelineX unit was good - however it has to be pointed out that the edge of the keyboard area, right above the optical drive opening, did seem to depress a tad bit too easily for our general comfort.  This TimelineX laptop weighs slightly under 2.5 kg - which is pretty much the norm with laptops sporting a 15.6-inch screen.

 During testing, the Aspire TimelineX 5830TG did tend to heat up - you notice this when touching the base area that is adjacent to the exhaust Of course you could always go the route of enjoying your audio experience through a headphone. Do keep in mind that, as with most other laptops, the bass is still rather restricted - however this is compensated for, as enabling Dolby Home Theatre option adds a level of wholeness to the sound that makes the hearing experience a very comfortable one. More importantly, this was one of the better, I dare say even the best, sound production that I have heard from all the laptops that I have reviewed.

 The TimelineX's speaker output levels, with Dolby Home Theatre 4 technology activated, are appropriately loud and clear for a mid-sized room. The Acer TimelineX Playing will play 720p and 1080p videos without any hassle. While these scores are sufficiently good, I'd still suggest playing contemporary games, at a low-to-medium resolution and graphics effects to obtain a worthwhile playable experience. Similarly, Metro 2033 run at 1366x768, DirectX 11, Very High Quality, AAA, AF 4X, and all settings maxed out registered 9.33 FPS. When benchmarking FarCry 2 at 1366x768, DirectX 10 mode, AA 2x, and 'Ultra High' settings, the average frame rate recorded stood at 36.26 FPS.

 Getting through most processor and memory intensive processes, let alone your daily home and office productivity chores, should be a comfortable task for this laptop, During synthetic testing, the laptop's hard disk recorded an average read speed of 73.0 MB/s and the laptop recorded a PC Mark Vantage score of 6750.  The Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG laptop recorded a score of 113 on the Worldbench 6 benchmark - for comparisons sake, The Acer Aspire 5755G notched up a score of 112 on the same benchmark.