Acer Aspire 5810 Review

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bernard Yozwiak
Review Date: August 2009


ComputerShopper-We'll leave it to economists and pundits to sort out whether this is indeed the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. What we do know for certain is that we’re all making sacrifices: cutting our spending, saving more, and searching for deals. At ComputerShopper.com, we’ve seen an undeniable surge in interest—from both readers and sellers—in low-cost computers, and part of that wave is the Aspire Timeline series from Acer. Dressed in an austere gray and promoted at Wal-Mart, among other outlets, these bare-bones notebooks are built for business users on a budget. The latest Timeline configuration we tested, the AS5810TZ-4657, is the largest of the line (it has a 15.6-inch screen) and lists for $598. (Note that at the time we wrote this, Wal-Mart had knocked down its selling price to $548, and other sellers had discounted this model, too.) But, in keeping with the times, this laptop will also demand you make some sacrifices. It has great battery life for a mainstream notebook, but its performance is mired somewhere between that of a low-end laptop and a netbook.

On the outside, this Timeline sports a dull, brushed-aluminum finish. It's not as flashy as some notebooks we’ve seen—if you want to stand out on a budget, try the HP Pavilion DV2-1030US—but it’s certainly professional-looking. Measuring in at 1x15x10 inches and weighing 5.3 pounds, the chassis is slim yet solid; we felt like we were typing on a slice of steel. And, without the glossy exterior finish that many of its competitors bear (including the Pavilion DV2-1030US), the Aspire 5810 Timeline is immune to fingerprint smudges.

Under the lid, the laptop hosts a luxurious full-size keyboard with a dedicated number-pad region. The keys are black, flat, and slick, with clear separation between the keys in what's commonly called a "Chiclet"-style design. Unlike the rest of the body, though, the key tops do become greasy with use. Our opinion of the keyboard is divided: We think the smooth (as opposed to sculpted) key surfaces make touch-typing tough, but we also love the keys’ snap and response.



The Chiclet-style keyboard is roomy and features a dedicated number pad. Media controls are via Fn-key combinations.



The touch pad, by contrast, has the same appealing, nonsmudging finish as the case, and its single left- and right-click button has a satisfactory click-feel. A separate, tiny button to the pad's right allows you to lock the touch pad—and, at times, you'll want to do so. The pad is very sensitive, and so much as a stray headphone cord can muddle your mousing. The touch pad also supports multitouch gestures, and here the pad's sensitivity is a plus; scrolling through text, zooming in on photos, and flipping through Web pages using two fingers is a lot of fun.

The wide-aspect-ratio screen measures 15.6 inches corner-to-corner and has a spacious native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. The display can support a cinematic 16-to-9 aspect ratio, but we noticed that some of our favorite test DVDs—The Matrix, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Brazil—appeared a little washed-out on this LCD. Indeed, the screen had a mild paleness about it in other applications, too, evident even after much tweaking of brightness levels. Above the screen is a 1.3-megapixel Webcam; in our tests, it gave us a saturated image under most lighting conditions. We wouldn’t recommend it for videography (even with Acer’s Crystal Clear Webcam software), but it's fine for everyday video chats.
Acer Aspire 5810 Timeline


We didn't expect meaty sound from the morsel-size speakers. We were, alas, right.

Volume levels, and audio in general, were a slight disappointment in this model. The overall sound proved a bit muted. Granted, we didn’t expect much bass from the tiny speakers, but we couldn’t get the volume cranked up very loud, either. The Beethoven snippet included in Windows Vista's Media Center sounded clear enough in our tests, but at top volume it didn't pack much punch and evinced some clipping of high notes. Although the Aspire 5810 Timeline is not an ideal laptop for media lovers, it should suffice for users who mainly want to use productivity apps and browse the Web.

Indeed, our benchmark-testing regimen confirmed that those two classes of task are the best fit for this laptop. Performance heavily reflected the laptop's budget innards. The 5810TZ-4657 configuration we tested employs Intel's 1.3GHz Pentium SU2700 processor and 3GB of DDR3 RAM. The SU2700 is a recent, power-efficient addition to Intel's mobile-CPU armory; classed as a "CULV" processor (the acronym stands for "Consumer Ultra Low Voltage"), it's one of several new laptop-centric CPUs intended for use in low-cost, thin, mainstream laptops. Disconcertingly, though, the SU2700 is a single-core processor (not all CULV chips are), which foreshadowed the dismal numbers we saw on our tests.

On our PCMark Vantage test, which measures a computer's ability across a range of common hardware-usage scenarios, the Aspire 5810 Timeline eked out a score of 1,452—the lowest result we’ve seen from a mainstream, non-netbook notebook this year. The laptop also took almost 22 minutes to encode our standard test clip in Windows Media Encoder 9 (WME9), and 8.5 minutes to convert our 11 standard MP3 test files to AAC format in iTunes. In both cases, the Aspire 5810 Timeline lagged behind just about every comparably priced laptop we've bench-tested this year that wasn't an Atom-based netbook. And its score on Cinebench 10, a measure of CPU and graphics performance, was, at 1,387, very close to the trailing edge of the group.

At $599, we certainly don't expect the Aspire 5810 Timeline to take on dual- or quad-core laptops with dedicated graphics chips, but it could offer much more pep as a budget laptop. The Gateway NV5214u, for instance, recently managed a 2,261 score on our PCMark Vantage test, encoded our WME9 test video in less than 10 minutes, and converted our iTunes test tracks in about 6 minutes. Even though the Gateway’s performance isn’t stellar, the model we tested rang up at $500.

As you'd expect, with its integrated Intel graphics chipset (the GMA 4500MHD) and single-core Pentium engine, the Aspire 5810 Timeline isn't a fit gaming machine. At its native screen resolution, it achieved a score of 557 on our 3DMark06 test. (Once again, the less-pricey Gateway NV5214u scored higher.) Undemanding older games may run adequately at a dialed-back resolution, but we wouldn't expect much more. Think Bejeweled rather than Crysis.


You can't tell by looking, but the center two icons indicate push-buttons for data backup and a power-saving mode.



In our battery-rundown test, however, this laptop got its chance to shine. The Aspire 5810 Timeline's screen is energy-efficient and LED-backlit, and Acer’s patented PowerSmart technology senses when the laptop is unplugged and automatically reduces power-draining functions. (PowerSmart can also be activated by a button above the keyboard, although at first we mistook the button for a status light.) In our grueling battery-draining benchmark test—we play a DVD movie continuously until the laptop dies—the Aspire 5810 Timeline survived for an impressive 3 hours and 56 minutes. That’s longer than any other mainstream notebook that we've tested has endured, a testament to an efficient design and the power-sipping SU2700 processor. The thin-and-light MSI X-Slim X600, which crossed paths with the Timeline in our labs, came close in our battery test, but, then again, it costs about $200 more and lacks a built-in optical drive. Under lighter and more judicious usage, we suspect that the Aspire 5810 Timeline could last close to Acer's projection of a full 8 hours.



On the left edge, VGA and HDMI video outputs live side by side. Three USB ports here are joined by a fourth on the opposite edge.



The laptop offers plenty of connectivity options. You’ll find a two video outputs (old-school VGA and modern HDMI), as well as microphone and headphone jacks, and a Kensington-lock slot. The four USB 2.0 ports on the chassis are one more than the norm. The front edge of the laptop has a five-format memory-card reader and a handy indicator light that shows at a glance whether the battery is fully charged. The notebook can connect to the Net wirelessly over 802.11b/g Wi-Fi or cabled through the Ethernet jack.

As for the rest of the package, our test model had a spacious 320GB hard drive preloaded with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. Acer also includes 60-day trials of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and McAfee Security Center, and it backs the machine with a one-year warranty. Other software includes eSobi Lite 2 (an RSS newsreader) and Acer Backup Manager, which is integrated nicely with the machine. By simply pressing a button above the keyboard (again, it’s tricky, because the button looks like a status light), you can trigger a backup to an external hard drive.

The Aspire 5810 Timeline may bear a low price, but it sacrifices some serious performance to make it possible. We did like its steel-gray finish and strong battery life, but even at the budget end of the spectrum, a laptop is a long-term investment for most users. If you’re looking to get the best value, spending a bit more for a peppier, more media-friendly machine will be the right move, unless your two big motivators are a big screen for spreadsheets and maximum off-the-plug runtime. (For alternatives, see our guide to shopping for a budget laptop.)
Price (at time of review): $598 (mfr. est., as tested)

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Gateway NV5807u All-Purpose Laptop

By Patrick Miller
August 19, 2009 07:01 PM ET

PC World - The biggest selling point of the Gateway NV5807u all-purpose laptop is its LED-backlit, 15.6-inch, HD panel with a 1366-by-768-pixel native resolution. As with all glossy LCD screens, the glare becomes extraordinarily annoying in brightly lit environments, but you can offset that by blasting the LED backlighting (and burning the laptop's battery life). Also make sure to keep your head precisely positioned: At about 20 degrees from center, the display starts to dim, and at 45 degrees it's unreadable even at the brightest setting possible. If you're watching a movie on it with someone else, the two of you might end up cheek to cheek. (Bug or feature?)

Once you've found a good place to put the display, the video quality is excellent. I thought the vivid yet accurate colors--and the seamless, lag-free transitions--were striking. Like any laptop offering integrated Intel GMA 4500 MHD graphics, however, this machine can't play many conventional games. It will yield decent video via the VGA and HDMI-out ports, though it might take a little fiddling; when I tested it with a ViewSonic HD display, the recommended resolution cut off a significant chunk of the edge of the desktop.

Bolstering the NV5807u's appeal as an entertainment PC are its speakers, which I found to be surprisingly good. Though they're no replacement for a decent pair of external speakers (particularly on bass output and overall volume), their sound quality and clarity were impressive for laptop speakers. I thought that they rivaled some desktop-replacement laptop speakers. It's kind of a shame that the NV5807u lacks a discrete graphics card--if it had dedicated graphics, that plus the gorgeous screen and the speakers would make this laptop a solid portable gaming machine indeed.

The other big selling point of this laptop, though, really has to be the $599 (as of 8/7/09) price. The NV5807u's spec sheet shows that you get a decent deal for your dollar. Between the Intel 2.1GHz T6500 Core 2 Duo processor and the 4GB of memory, the laptop should be more than powerful enough for any basic home, business, or entertainment needs. In WorldBench 6 it notched a score of 77, fairly low for an all-purpose laptop but about right for the price point. However, the NV5807u's closest competitor, the Lenovo G530, managed to stay roughly on a par with this machine in most of our benchmarks (including earning a slightly higher WorldBench mark) despite being $100 cheaper.

In battery-life tests, Gateway's laptop survived 4 hours, 22 minutes. Though that isn't nearly a match for the marathon-ready performance of something like the Lenovo T400, the result is slightly longer than the average we've seen in our tests.

The 320GB SATA hard drive and the 8X dual-layer Super Multi optical drive will give you plenty of storage space, and the standard array of ports (two USB ports on each side of the laptop and a multiformat card reader) and connectivity options (56-kbps modem, gigabit ethernet, and 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi) will give you plenty of ways to fill that hard drive up. Note that the NV5807 doesn't have FireWire, so if you have a video camera that requires it, look elsewhere. The laptop does have a (rather unremarkable) Webcam and mic for voice and video chat, and the provided driver software lets you access the feature when you move the mouse to the spot right under the camera, which can be sort of neat (and is easily disabled, in case it gets annoying).

I found the keyboard mildly irritating. Kudos to the NV5807u's designers for managing to cram in not only a keyboard and trackpad but also a keypad, which number crunchers everywhere will appreciate. The problem is, the number pad and keyboard are just about jammed up on top of each other. My right hand frequently ended up over the number pad when I actually wanted to press Enter or Delete.

Atop the keyboard are touch-sensitive buttons that allow you to access the volume controls and power-saving functions (most useful), open up the Gateway MyBackup software (sometimes useful), and turn off the trackpad.

On more than one occasion I was tempted to use that last toggle, as the mouse button bar is horribly awkward to use. This landing strip for a gnat supposedly doubles for left and right mouse clicks, but my oversized hands ached to find the right angle to tap. The middle of the button is a dead zone that won't register any input. Instead of resting my wrists on the laptop and leaving my thumb on the button, I had to hold my hand in the air and press down, practically at a 90-degree angle. You'll probably want to bring your own mouse for this one. The machine is also pretty heavy, at 5.8 pounds--it's fine if you're driving from home to office to café, but if you're walking or taking the bus, it's a little much.

Gateway's NV5807u has an attractive display, above-average speakers, and enough power under the hood to serve as a general-use PC for quite some time. The trade-off you make is in portability: 5.8 pounds of computer is an awful lot to be carting around between classes or around the city, and a 15.6-inch display looks great on a desk but eats up most of an airplane tray table (not to mention your battery life). If you're a student who would rather use a computer to watch movies in your dorm than take notes in class, or if you're a professional who needs the screen space and doesn't mind the weight, then the NV5807u is a solid buy for $599 compared with similarly priced models from other manufacturers, such as the Acer Aspire Timeline, the Lenovo Ideapad Y450, or even Lenovo's business-centric G530, which sells for even less ($499).

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