Acer TravelMate Timeline 8481T
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If you're the sort of super-busy business person who wants a slim [ laptop] with absolutely no style or flare, the Acer TravelMate 8481T may be for you.
It packs an Intel Core i5 processor and 3GB of RAM into a sturdy, metal-shelled body. We're not keen on the way the battery pokes out, but many of you will appreciate the typing comfort offered by the tilted angle.
It's available now from [ SaveOnLaptops] for £750
Design and build quality
When it's just sat on your desk, the 8481T seems to have its little heart set on taking the prize as the most boring looking laptop currently on sale. The lid is simply a piece of plain matte black that goes to show just how dull a laptop can be made. Bravo, Acer, we don't think we've yawned that hard at a laptop before.
This model is designed for the business chap though, so it's understandable that it hasn't been slathered in bright colours or pretty patterns. Still, a bit of style wouldn't be too frowned upon in the boardroom would it?
Yep, that's a pretty boring looking lid.
The shell is made from a magnesium-aluminium alloy that feels like it could withstand a few bumps and knocks. Slightly annoyingly, the lid is extremely thin and can be easily bent, tour Lệ Giang which we weren't too keen on. It's not a major issue though as laptops generally don't receive damage when sat open on desks -- it's much more likely that they'll receive the heavy blows while in transit.
Thankfully then, when it's closed up it feels a lot more secure. The metal shell acts rather like a frightened armadillo, balling itself up to protect its fragile interior. It didn't offer much in the way of flex so we're pretty confident it could take the sort of punishment it would likely get on an average business trip -- including being used as a coffee-table in meeting room B.
At 22mm thick, the 8481T is particularly slim for a business-orientated laptop so it will be slightly easier to carry around than some of the chunky beasts out there. Sadly, the battery sticks out at the back an extra 20mm, meaning that the thickness is not uniform all the way along.
Without that battery, the 8481T is very slim. It does give it a nice angle for typing on, though.
In some ways that's quite annoying as the lump stops you from sliding it into a slim sleeve, tour Lệ Giang as well as making it look as though it has a terrible hump. However, when your laptop is on your desk, the hump tilts the machine towards you which provides a very comfortable typing experience when you're sat working for hours on end.
You could also potentially hold onto the battery and use it as a handle, but we wouldn't really want to trust the plastic clips keeping it in place for too long.
Keyboard and trackpad
The keyboard uses isolated keys, but they are the type that float above the keyboard base, rather then poking through it, as you'd find on laptops such as Acer's own [ Aspire Timeline X]. We're much less keen on this 'floaty' type as it makes the keys feel very rattly and fragile. Worse still, there's a massive gap beneath each key which is just begging to be filled by cake crumbs, fluff and any other detritus that happens to be in the local vicinity.
Those gaps are just crying out for a bit of plugging up with food.
The keyboard's base also doesn't fill us with confidence due to the fairly large amount of flex it offers while you're typing -- it's somewhat disconcerting when you press down on one key and see all the surrounding keys flex inwards. You'd certainly want to avoid smashing your fists down on it in rage if you just missed those quarterly projections.
As the keys 'float' above the surface, it's sometimes quite difficult to differentiate between each key when typing at speed, which may result in a few errors until you get used to it. Thanks to the battery bump, the keyboard angle makes typing much more comfortable when you're sat upright at your desk.
The keyboard takes up most of the width of the machine, so you're getting a full-sized keyboard rather than a cramped thing designed for people with needles for fingers. There's no separate numeric keypad though so if you plan on inputting a load of figures into spreadsheets then you may want to get an external keypad. And a coffee.
The trackpad is large and responsive, supporting multi-touch gestures for two-finger scrolling and pinch to zoom. The buttons are wide and very easy to press, which makes web browsing that bit smoother.
The trackpad is large and responsive. There's a fingerprint reader too, which will please your IT department.
There's also a fingerprint reader sat in between the buttons which will cause no end of delight for your IT department who'll no doubt be very keen on beefing up your security and passwords with your fingers.
Screen
The size of the 8481T's body would normally only allow a 13-inch screen, but Acer has done some jiggery-pokery and managed to fit in a 14-inch display.
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