Acer's Travelmate C111 combines an ultraportable frame, Centrino, Tablet and Bluetooth technology, but it is let down by low battery life. Read our Australian review.

It´s been nearly a year since the first Tablet PC notebooks hit the local market, and since that time, Tablets as a category have been somewhat quiet. Acer´s Travelmate C111 marks the company´s latest entry into the Tablet sphere. The big change that the C111 brings to the table is the inclusion of a Centrino badge and Bluetooth connectivity. The C110 we tested was powered by a 1GHzMHz Mobile Pentium M processor, 512MB of SDRAM and sported a 40GB hard drive. Tablets still sit very solidly in the enterprise space – or, presumably, the very affluent enthusiast one – so it´s little surprise to see that the C111 is somewhat underpowered in the graphics department; it uses Intel´s own homegrown integrated 855GM graphics processor.

The C111 comfortably sits in the ultraportable category; at 251mmx205mmx29.7mm and 1.45kg, it easily slips into most bags and won´t cause your shoulders to sag after a long trip carrying it. The C111 is finished in silver and black, which is hardly original in terms of notebook designs, but it´s not objectionable either.

When in notebook format, you´d be hard put to tell that the C111 was in fact a Tablet PC. Like Acer´s previous Tablets, the C111 uses a rotating screen hinge to enable users to flip between full tablet and notebook modes. This is done by clicking out two small holders on each side of the screen and then turning the screen 180 degrees before flipping it down onto the keyboard. Our only concern with this is that the holders are somewhat flimsy, and it´s very tempting to permanently leave them in the clicked out position. The pen for tablet input is held quite strongly in the top of the 10.4 inch LCD screen; it took us some struggling to initially unseat it.

Like most ultracompact notebooks, the C111 doesn´t have space within its tiny frame for an optical drive; instead it´s bundled with an external CD-RW/DVD combo drive that connects via the C111´s Firewire port. While there´s only so small you can get an optical drive, it does add to the overall bulk of the system when being carried.

The keyboard uses Acer´s familiar ‘smile´ layout, where the keys are ever so slightly splayed upwards, something that users may initially struggle with getting used to  on the C111´s tiny keyboard. A set of five very small program keys sit above the keyboard, three of which are programmable – the other two being dedicated to web and email program launching.

When it comes to ways to suck out battery life, the C111´s rather oversupplied. A single PC card slot starts the ball rolling, along with two USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire port, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. We can´t imagine that the firewire CD-RW/DVD drive is exactly gentle on the C111´s battery life, either.

In our tests using Bapco´s MobileMark 2002, the C111´s performance rating of 131 gives it a significant boost over the immediate competition; in a US test of the similar 900MHz C110, it scored around 20 points ahead of similar specified Tablet PC systems. That´s a great incentive to pick up the C111, but there is one significant catch.

While it runs its performance test, MobileMark 2002 also tests battery life, and here the C111 struggled badly. Its battery conked out after two hours and eight minutes, which puts it solidly at the bottom of tablet PC battery life. Intel puts great stock in the battery optimisations of the Pentium M, but you´d be hard put to see that in action here.

In the gentler reader tests, the C111 managed two hours and seventeen minutes, still not terribly inspiring. To somewhat mitigate the battery life of the C111, Acer supplies two batteries with the notebook, but in order to swap them, you´ll need to have the notebook tethered to a power supply, or be willing to reboot the system. Running with both batteries the system still falls a little short of Acer´s estimated 5 hour battery life for the system.

Acer Travelmate C111
Company: Acer Australia
Price: AU$4,299
Phone: 1300 366 567

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.