Review: Acer TravelMate Timeline 8371

Acer's TravelMate Timeline 8000 series of laptops are designed as workhorse systems for mobile professionals, available in three screen sizes and claimed by the firm to have upwards of eight hours battery life for all-day use on the road.

Announced during the summer and available now, the TravelMate 8371 is the entry level model of the Timeline 8000 series, featuring a 13.3in display, while the 8471 and 8571 have larger 14in and 15.6in screens respectively.

But the 8371 still has a decent specification with a dual-core 1.4GHz SU9400 processor, up to 4GB memory, and hard drive options up to 500GB. Connectivity options include an Intel 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi adapter, Bluetooth and gigabit Ethernet, while our review unit had an optional 3G modem to allow users to stay connected wherever they are.

In tests, we found the TravelMate 8371 to be a solid if somewhat unexceptional laptop, but with a decent keyboard and better than average battery life. In other words, it should make a good choice for business users that need an everyday workhorse PC rather than a flashy prestige ultraportable with a correspondingly high price tag.

Our review unit was supplied with 4GB of memory and a 320GB 2.5in hard drive, plus a built-in Qualcomm Gobi 2000 3G modem, a configuration that sells for a recommended retail price of £737.50 + VAT.

It also came with Windows Vista Business edition pre-installed rather than the newer Windows 7, and Acer told us it has no plans to offer Windows 7 for the near future, which seems like a very peculiar decision to us. A downgrade disk to XP Professional is included, however.

At 1.65Kg, the TravelMate 8371 is about average in weight for a modern laptop, and quite a modest 25mm thick (about an inch) when closed. Although relatively slim in absolute terms, it looks chunky compared to some of the more recent ultra-thin designs.

The first thing we noticed when we opened the system is the keyboard, which seems large in comparison with many other laptops we have seen. The keys are also larger than usual and have flattened keytops, and we found this design very comfortable for typing. Our review system had a US layout, but Acer said that units shipped to customers in the UK come with a UK keyboard.

In front of the keyboard is the touchpad, which features a fingerprint swipe sensor between the mouse buttons. The touchpad comes with a Synaptics driver that by default enables gestures for scrolling and other functions. A small button disables the touchpad, which is handy for extending periods of typing without worrying about accidentally brushing your hand against it.

Meanwhile, the 13.3in widescreen display gives an excellent image at a default resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. However, we found that when resting on your lap, the screen does not go quite far back enough for a comfortable viewing position. A VGA Crystal Eye webcam is fitted above the display.

One notable absence from the TravelMate 8371 is a DVD or CD drive, despite the fact that the system is large enough to have one fitted as standard.

However, Acer has equipped the system with plenty of I/O options. On the right side there are two USB ports, Ethernet, and a connector for an EasyPort IV docking bar, plus a slot for Flash cards supporting SD, Memory Stick Pro and xD formats. To the left is a third USB port, VGA output and audio jack sockets.

Acer's £101 EasyPort IV docking bar provides easy desktop connection to peripherals and features an Ethernet port, four USB ports, DVI and VGA output, and audio connectors.

Two covers on the underside of the system unscrew to provide access to the hard disk and the two Sodimm slots for the memory, the latter of which were both filled on our review unit. A slot to accept a network SIM for mobile broadband access is located in the battery compartment.

The performance of the TravelMate 8371 as measured by Microsoft's Windows Experience Index (WEI) is a little low at 3.5, but this reflects the score of the lowest performing component, its Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics, while the processor, disk and memory all showed reasonable scores.

Some models of the TravelMate 8371 are available with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics instead, which should offer better performance for games and demanding graphics applications.

In use, we found the TravelMate 8371 to be fairly responsive, as you would expect for a system with 4GB of memory – although we would have preferred to see Windows 7 in place of Vista.

Acer quotes a battery life of eight hours plus for this system, but in our tests using the Battery Eater Pro benchmark it only managed about half this, running for four hours and one minute from its 5800mAh battery pack.

We tested using the TravelMate 8371 in the same configuration it was delivered, save that we disabled the screen and system power management timeouts that would otherwise have turned off the display backlight and put the machine in suspend mode, in order to simulate continuous use.

Four hours is not a bad battery life for a laptop, although the system does dim the screen considerably when operating from batteries, and users may see a different time depending on their use of wireless or if they increase the brightness.

Software pre-installed on the TravelMate 8371 included the almost ubiquitous 60-day trial versions of Microsoft Office 2007 and McAfee Security Centre, plus several Acer tools, including its eRecovery Management for restoring the system, Crystal Eye webcam and Acer Video Conference Manager (VCM).

Acer had also pre-installed Google Desktop, InterVideo’s WinDVD player and the eSobi web client for RSS feeds and other information.