Acer Aspire AS1830T-3935

Acer Aspire AS1830T-3935

There are two ways to look at the Acer Aspire AS1830T-3935 ($649 list, $299 with two-year contract) laptop, a configuration sold exclusively at AT&T stores. The first is in comparison to other laptops similarly-equipped with a consumer ultra low voltage (CULV) processor, as well as to the netbooks sold by AT&T (since the AS1830T-3935 has a similarly small footprint and modest design). The other is as a bundle from AT&T, complete with a 2-year data plan, a free smartphone (which requires its own separate 2-year contract) which lowers the price to just $199 after rebate. In both cases, consumers should be aware of what exactly they are getting for their money. As a laptop, the AS1830T-3935 is incredibly lightweight and speedier than the netbooks sold in AT&T stores, thanks to its CULV processor. But it falls far short, compared with other CULV laptops. In fact, though it's identical in looks to the Acer Aspire AS1830T-68U118 ($900 street, 4 stars), the AS1830T-3935 has only half the hard drive space, memory capacity, and battery life of the AS1830T-68U118, and comes with a Core i3 CPU (the AS1830T-68U118 came with the fastest CULV CPU available, the Intel Core i7-680um).