Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TZ

Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TZ review

If you take a trip to your local PC superstore and take a look at all the laptops under £399, you'll find that the majority are fat, heavy, plasticky and cumbersome. The Acer Aspire Timeline X3820TZ couldn't be more different, and it's just as portable and solid as it is great value. The Timeline is finished with a solid brushed-metal lid and the same material is also used on the palmrest as well. This gives it a solid feel, reminiscent of a quality ultraportable, but instead of costing in excess of £700, this is available for a mere £380. This 13.3-inch laptop weighs just 1.9kg, something your back will thank you for if you have a long commute. Any 13-inch laptop at this size and price will immediately draw comparisons with netbooks, but let us be clear, there's a huge difference. Firstly, the Aspire Timeline X3820TZ features a dual-core 2.00GHz Intel Pentium processor, which means it's capable of more than just simple web browsing. What's more, it also has a comfortable full-sized keyboard. However, like a netbook, there's no optical drive supplied, so DVDs and CDs are out of the question – prompting questions about whether it's suitable as a main PC.