Specifications
The version of the Aspire Timeline 4810T I am reviewing has an Intel Core 2 solo SU3500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, Windows Vista Home Premium, 320GB of storage, optical drive, and a 14-inch 1366 x 768 resolution screen. The machine has graphics via Intel GMA 4500MHD and sports 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi along with an integrated webcam and memory card reader.

Benchmarks
I tested the Aspire Timeline 4810T with my iTunes encoding test, movie encoding, Battery Eater Pro and PCMark Vantage. The machine scored 1605 PCMarks on the PCMark Vantage benchmark, a decent score for an ultraportable. The movie encoding test was done with Windows Media Encoder and the Wonder of Flight video from Microsoft. It took the Aspire Timeline 4810T 12 minutes and 53 seconds to turn the 1080p source video into a DVD quality video suitable for streaming from the Internet.

For my iTunes encoding benchmark, I used an older version of iTunes, turned the Stone Temple Pilots Core CD, and encoded it from MP3 to AAC format. It took the 4810T 3 minutes and 42 seconds to encode all of the tracks on the CD. One of the big marketing points for the Timeline notebooks is all day computing with 8 hours of battery life on a single charge. To test the battery life for the Aspire Timeline 4810T I used Battery Eater Pro. The benchmark is harder on the battery life of notebooks than real world use, so mileage will vary. With the notebook in high performance mode Battery Eater gave a runtime of 281 minutes. That is roughly half the claims of runtime from Acer, keep in mind that Battery Eater is hard on batteries and I ran the notebook without any power saving features on for a worst case scenario on battery life.

In Use
The Timeline notebook has a strange keyboard. The keyboard has keys that are very smooth and flat. The feel of the keys is odd to me after being accustomed to keys with concave design. The typing feel on the keyboard is good with decent tactile feel and response. The keys are very quiet so taking notes with the Aspire Timeline 4810T in class won’t disturb those around you.

The screen of the notebook is glossy, which means lots of glare in anything other than a dark room. The good part about the screen is that it provides great color reproduction and is very good for movie watching on the go. The resolution of the screen also supports 720p HD video.

One of the most noticeable features of the Aspire Timeline 4810T is the thin profile of the machine. The 4810T is under an inch thick at its thinnest point and is light enough for all day use without breaking your back. The machine isn't as thin as the MacBook Air or the Dell Adamo, but it is a mere fraction of the cost of either of those machines. The Aspire Timeline 4810T as I tested retails for about $700 online making it a very good bargain for a notebook user looking for decent performance in a light package with long battery life.