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Next up to the plate was Acer. They’ve been in the notebook business for the longest time, and their TravelMate series were quite popular in their days. However, I’ve had some bad experience with Acer’s helpdesk and service centres so I’m not exactly a huge fan of the company. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t look at their offerings from an objective point of view. So here goes:

Acer
A colleague of mine was looking for a notebook as a favour for her brother’s friend (yeah, I know you’re going, “what?”). Price was of course at the top of her list of requirements. For that reason, while I was drooling over the feather weights, I was also keeping an eye out for great deals at rock bottom prices. The first in a string of such offers was from (you guessed it) Acer.

It was the price tag that first drew our attention. The TravelMate 2404WXCi Mobile PC was going for RM2,699 (USD700). Here are the specs:

• Intel Celeron Mobile Processor 380 (1.60GHz, 1MB cache, 400MHz FSB)
• Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Home edition
• Intel GMA 900 with up to 128MB of shared memory
• 256MB DDR2 RAM
• 40GB HDD
• 14.1″ WXGA TFT colour lcd and dual display via Acer GridVista (Widescreen)
• DVD/CD-RQ combo drive
• Integrated Wireless LAN
• Acer Launch Manager and Acer eManager
• Preloaded Nortan Anti-Virus
• 1 year limited international traveller’s warranty

It all looks well and good until you take a closer look at the parts. For one, this TravelMate uses a Celeron CPU instead of the Intel Centrino. That’s a huge hit in processing power. Secondly, everything has been stripped down and integrated (on board graphics). So don’t expect anything spectacular on the graphics side. On the plus side is that you do get a barebones notebook that you can lug around with you. This is probably perfect if you don’t need too much processing power (e.g. you’re doing your office work on it and you only need the basic MS Office functionality and you’re not too particular about waiting a while for things to load up).

The specifications listed on the brochures by the Acer retailer did not include the dimensions or weight of the 2404. I had to do a little digging before finding the references to the actual figures on Acer’s site and even then it was ambiguous. I found two possible weightage based on the specifications for the 2404 but neither bode well if you’re not built like a tank. The 2404 with 14.1″ screen and DVD module can weigh in at either 2.56kg or 2.72kg.

A second (probably better) notebook by Acer that caught my eye was the TravelMate C202TMi Convertible Mobile PC. It is actually a tablet PC and not a notebook. There are inherent differences between the two which I will not go into. The key differences are all in the screen (touchscreen and rotatable). Anyway, the specifications as follows:

• Intel Centrino Mobile Technology
• Intel Pentium Mobile Processor 740 running at 1.73GHz with 2MB cache, and 533MHz FSB
• Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (WIFI)
• Mobile Intel 915PM Chipset
• Genuine Microsoft Windows XP Table PC edition
• 512MB DDR2 RAM
• 80GB HDD
• 12.1″ XGA TFT colour LCD
• Acer MediaBay Hot-swappable DVD-Dual layer drive
• 4 tablet buttons: Windows security, Function, Esc, and Screen rotate
• 4-in-1 card reader supporting MMC, SD, MS, and MS PRO
• Integrated Bluetooth
• Acer Launch Manager and Acer eManager
• Preloaded Nortan Anti-Virus Software
• 1 year limited international traveller warranty

The tablet PC will set you back RM6,988 (USD1,800). Again there was no weight or dimensions specified on the brochure so back to Acer’s website which lists the C202TMi at 2.05kg with 3-cell batter and weight-saver module, 2.35kg with 3-cell battery and optical drive module, 2.5kg with 6-cell battery and optical drive module, or 2.6kg with 9-cell battery and optical drive module. By optical drive module, I assume either a CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW combo, or DVD-RW drive. A little on the heavy side but the weight saver module version seems acceptable. The tradeoff is of course that you’ll probably have to pay more for the module. Additionally, reducing the weight will reduce the battery size, and that of course affects the battery life. That’s a tradeoff that you’ll need to decide on when making the purchase.

Basically, the reason this caught my eye was the fact that it was a tablet PC and had a rotateable screen. Whether or not I’ll ever have any use for it is a different story all together. The same argument for my Samsung monitor applies. Whether I use it or not matters little, the real point is that it CAN do it :)