The Acer TravelMate 3200 is marketed as an all-rounder, combining performance, mobility, and value. It is one of the smaller notebooks submitted, mainly because of the 14.1in screen it uses. We found this notebook quite plain which is a contrast from what they usually send in for testing. Acer notebooks tend to be the most stylish and modern looking of the pack.
Underneath the bonnet is an Intel Pentium 1.6GHz M processor with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB HDD. It also uses an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics accelerator, which seems to be the most popular graphics chip right now.
The notebook combines a DVD multi recorder that can burn DVDs and CD-RWs.
In terms of ports this notebook has a quite a good mix. It doesn't have S-Video but it does have FireWire and a 3-in-1 card reader that accepts MS, MMC, and SD cards. Gigabit LAN, modem, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are also standard.
The Acer has front firing speakers, which we're not big fans of as you tend to lose quite a bit of sound quality when you're typing and listening to music at the same time.
The Acer is one of the fastest notebooks tested. It ran all the tests at 1024 x 768 (its native mode) which would have given it a slight advantage. All the other notebooks ran our tests at higher resolutions as their native modes happened to be higher.
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Sorry guys, but the reviewed x86 machines seem rather lame to me.
On 10th September 2004 I bought a Clevo M375E notebook that beats nearly every specification of the reviewed units.
This unit has a Fujitsu 100GB HDD, Intel Dothan 2GHz, 2GB of PC2700 SDRAM, Pioneer single layer 2x DVD-RW burner, 54MB WiFi, build-in camera, 3 format card reader, 15.6" wide-screen LCD @ 1680 x 1050, S-Video out, dual display support, FireWire, Gigabit LAN, v.92 modem, IR, 3 x USB2, 1 x Type 1 PCMCIA and serial port.
It is the fastest PC I have ever worked on, easily beating most P4 desktops in everything that is not hard drive or CDROM intensive.
The only thing it lacks is BlueTooth, which was available as an option.
The 2GB of RAM dent the battery life a little, as do the 2GHz Dothan and huge screen resolution, but I still get over three hours of practical work on a single charge with the WiFi turned off.
When I bought it, the RAM was very expensive, but this has come down considerably since.
This unit retail now for less than $4500.
For taxation reasons, I normally replace my notebook once every financial year. If this reviewed collection is exciting the "envy crowd" now, I may hold on to this unit for another year. I can't see that updating only to get dual-layer or BlueTooth is worth my while...