Acer the pick of skinny laptops

Published 7:22 pm Friday, June 12, 2009

NEW YORK — Tiny, cheap laptops known as netbooks have been a big success. But not everyone likes their small screens and keyboards, and their processors aren’t powerful enough for some common tasks, like playing high-quality Internet video.

Now, Intel Corp. is pushing slightly more powerful chips for slightly larger computers that still have key netbook qualities such as a light weight and long battery life. Could this be a Goldilocks moment for laptops — when we get machines that are just right?

I tested two new models with the new processors, Acer’s Timeline 3810T and MSI’s X-Slim X340. Acer’s model achieves a great balance of weight, features and power. The second … well, Goldilocks would have moved on after trying that bowl of porridge.

The disappointing thing about both models is that they list at $900, twice the price of a netbook, and 50 percent more than a low-end laptop. The good news is that just a few years ago, capable laptops in same weight class — around 3 pounds — cost at least twice as much.

Both computers have 13.3-inch screens that match the proportions of an HDTV screen and run Windows Vista Home Premium. Neither has a DVD drive. Otherwise, they’re quite different.

The X-Slim is an eye-catching, sleek design that, to be blunt, copies a lot from Apple Inc.’s ultra-slim MacBook Air. The X-Slim is just as thick as the thickest point on the Air, though the Air tapers off from a bulge under the hinge while the X-Slim keeps an even thickness. At 2.9 pounds, it’s a hair lighter than the Air and lighter than some netbooks.

How does MSI do it? Plastic. The Air’s chassis is machined out of a big piece of aluminum, giving it rigidity. The X-Slim is all plastic, and its wrist rest and keyboard flex under your fingers in a way that doesn’t inspire confidence.

Acer’s Timeline has a more conventional design that wouldn’t look out of place in a boardroom. It has a brushed-metal cover that resists fingerprints and has a pleasant keyboard. It weighs 3.5 pounds — heavier than the X-Slim but about 2 pounds lighter than a typical 14-inch laptop.

Inside, these computers sport Intel’s ultra-low voltage processors, or ULVs. Similar processors have been on the market for some time at high prices, but Intel is now bringing them down so they could go into a $600-$700 laptop, positioning them as a step up from the Atom processors that run netbooks.

But there are two things I’d like to do with a small laptop that the Atom does not do well. One is to watch high-resolution Internet video in the Flash format, used by YouTube, Hulu and several other sites. This is very taxing on the processor and will make an Atom-powered netbook stutter badly.

The other challenge for the Atom is videoconferencing. Laptops today come with built-in webcams, but the Atom has a hard time producing and decoding high-quality video.

So how do the ULVs handle this? The Timeline does it with aplomb, smoothly playing high-resolution video from Hulu and producing images with Google Video Chat.

The X-Slim, meanwhile, was only slightly better than a late-model Atom-powered netbook. Action scenes in “Prison Break” on Hulu were jittery, and videoconferencing suffered too.

The Timeline slays the X-Slim in battery life, too. I made each computer play high-definition video from the hard drive while running a Twitter application that accessed the Internet over Wi-Fi. That ran the X-Slim down in one hour and 42 minutes, while the Timeline lasted three hours and 40 minutes. That lends credence to Acer’s claim that under a typical workload, the Timeline will last more than eight hours.

So I have a mixed verdict on ULVs. The Timeline at least shows that the processors can be used in laptops that are reasonably powerful.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel’s main competitor, has launched a set of chips it calls “Neo” this year, for computers in a similar price range and size. The first computer with these chips, the Hewlett-Packard dv2, is heavier than the ones I tested and has a battery life more in line with the X-Slim than the Timeline. But AMD plans better processors soon, and they could provide an interesting alternative.

The Timeline has a couple of knocks against it: Its cooling fan is quite loud, and the screen doesn’t bend back very far, which can be a problem if you like to use it while curled up on the couch. Also, it’s still a bit expensive at $900. But overall, it’s a light, long-lasting computer that avoids the unnecessary design flourishes that compromise the X-Slim.