Acer Aspire TimelineX 5820T review

Acer’s Timeline laptops have always been about efficiency, with low-voltage CPUs and long battery life coming ahead of performance in the priority stakes. That’s all about to change, though, as Acer updates the Aspire side of the range to use an efficient CPU that can handle a little more strain.

We are, of course, referring to Intel’s Core i3 and i5 processors, which are making their way into various models in the Timeline family. Unlike the 45nm, Penryn-based CULV chips in existing models, this TimelineX 5820T uses a Core i5, built on the more efficient 32nm Westmere architecture with all its accompanying benefits.

The Core i5-430M’s 2.27GHz frequency, for instance, is far in excess of any CULV chip, and both of its cores are kitted out with Turbo Boost so a busy core can borrow a little boost of power from an idle one as required. There’s also Hyper-Threading technology, as well as a 500MHz GPU integrated on to the die itself.

These technical improvements manifested themselves in much more laptop-like benchmark scores. The TimelineX 5820T sped to an overall score of 1.54, which is only a shade slower than the ever-popular Dell Studio 1557, with its mobile Core i7-720QM processor.

The upgrade isn’t so much about processing speed, though, it’s about the freedom the Core i5 brings to the table. As well as the aforementioned Intel graphics, an ATI Radeon HD 5650 chip is present to take the strain when required. It can only be enabled when the Acer’s plugged in – which scuppers any chance of portable gaming – but it managed a commendable 37fps in our Medium-quality Crysis benchmark. The High quality benchmark was a step too far, but there’s enough there to tempt casual gamers.

The key thing about the dual-graphics setup is that they’re switchable. Not in the dynamic sense of Nvidia’s latest innovations – you still need to manually select one or the other in the driver menu, unfortunately – but when you’re out and about the power-hungry ATI chip is disabled so it won’t impact on battery life. While the TimelineX 5820T can’t match the nine-hour lifespan of previous CULV siblings, its light use time of 6hrs 42mins is impressive in the arena of 15in laptops, and it’s efficient enough to give 2hrs 30mins when under full load, too.