Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440 Review
The Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T offers impressive portability, long battery life, and solid performance for workers on the move.
Combining the svelteness of an ultraportable with the screen size of a larger laptop, the Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T attempts to deliver the best of both worlds for business users. This sleek system crams a 14-inch display into a 13.3-inch chassis, offers seriously long battery life, and weighs just 4 pounds. Small-business users will also appreciate this Core i5 notebook's solid performance and host of security features. Read on to find out if Acer has what it takes to take on the best small-business notebooks.
Design
The Acer TravelMate 8481T-6440 has a modern, minimalist design. Aside from the gray brushed-metal Acer logo, the black matte metallic lid is bare, unless you count the scores of fingerprint smudges it gathered as soon as we touched it. The only other accents are the chrome-plated hinges.
The TravelMate's interior has the same black metallic motif as the exterior. A chiclet-style keyboard sits in a slightly recessed keyboard deck, while the display is surrounded by an impressively slim bezel. A row of buttons for the Launch Manager, InstantView Manager, Acer Backup Manager, Microphone audio control, and power sit above the keyboard in the top right-hand corner.
As with Acer's other TimelineX notebooks, the TravelMate 8481T is defined by its slim profile. At 4 pounds, it's lighter than competitors such as the 4.6-pound pound Toshiba Tecra R840and the 4.4-pound Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420s. The 8481T's petite 13 x 9.4 x 0.9-inch frame is only slightly smaller than the Tecra R840 (13.4 x 9.4 x 0.8-1.1 inches) as well as the E420s (13.7 x 9.3 x 1.2 inches).
The only thing that mars the 8481T's slimness is its battery, which protrudes about an inch out the back of the notebook. However, it tilts the keyboard toward the user, which some may find more comfortable for typing.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Acer 8481T's island-style keyboard has a generous amount of spacing between the flat keys, which provided solid feedback. We scored 50 words per minute on the Ten Thumbs Typing Test with a one-percent error rate, which is comparable to our desktop keyboard score. We noticed that the deck exhibited a tiny amount of flex, but our bigger complaint is that this Timeline lacks a backlit keyboard. A $999 notebook should have one.
The relatively large 3.5 x 2.1-inch Synaptics touchpad allowed us to navigate around the desktop with ease. Gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scrolling, and rotation worked well. Highlighting and copying text was a breeze, as was starting and ending slideshows with a three-finger flick or launching Google Chrome with three-finger flick.
The two discrete mouse buttons on the Timeline X 8481T felt slightly mushy, but they still managed to be responsive. While we would have preferred that the fingerprint reader was placed somewhere on the palm rest instead of between the mouse buttons, we found it unobtrusive.
Heat
After streaming videos on Hulu for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured a temperate 88 degrees Fahrenheit while the space between the G and H keys measured 87 degrees. The 8481T's underside was a reasonable 92 degrees; we consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.
Display and Audio
The super-slim bezel on the TimelineX 8481T allowed Acer to cram a 14.1-inch display into a chassis that would normally hold a 13.3-inch panel. Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" video was bright and vivid on the LED-backlit display. Even though matte displays aren't traditionally as rich as glossy screens, the 1366 x 768 screen on the 8481T offered bright cotton-candy pinks and emerald greens; the blacklight scenes at the end of the video were a sassy ultraviolet playland. When we watched The Three Musketeers 1080p full-screen YouTube trailer, the rich reds and opulent golds popped against a crystal-blue sky.
The audio on the TimelineX 8481T left something to be desired. We found ourselves straining to hear movie dialogue. Listening to music was slightly better, but it was not until we enabled the Loudness Equalization feature in the Realtek High Definition Speakers Control Panel that we got respectable sound. While the bass in Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" wasn't exactly super, it was passable and loud enough to fill a small room. Since the speakers are located on the bottom of the laptop, the audio was severely muted when the system was on our lap.
Ports and Webcam
The right side of the TimelineX 8481T houses two USB 2.0 ports, a Kensington lock slot, and the power port. A combo USB 3.0/eSATA port can be found on the left side along with HDMI, a headphone jack, a microphone port, Gigabite Ethernet, and a VGA port. A 5-in-1 card reader resides on the front lip of the 8481T.
The 1.3-megapixel webcam can capture stills in 1280 x 1024, but video is restricted to 1280 x 720p using the Acer Crystal Eye Webcam software. In our office, we saw bright, crisp images with warm colors and sharp detail. Images were a bit darker in natural light, and it was very difficult to make ourselves out under low light. When we made a few video calls using Skype, our callers reported clear images with sharp detail but complained that the audio faded in and out. We noticed a small amount of pixelation on our end, but audio came through loud clear.
Configurations
Our $999 Acer TravelMate 8481T-6440 came equipped with a 1.7-GHz Intel Core i5-2557M CPU with 4GB of RAM, a 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive, and an Intel HD 3000 GPU. The $799 TravelMate 8473T-6450 base model features a 2.3-GHz Intel i5-2410M CPU with 4GB of RAM, a 320GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive, and Intel HD 3000 graphics card. The $919 TravelMate 8473T-6484 offers a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i5-2530M processor with 4GB of RAM, a 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive, and an Intel HD 3000 GPU.Security Features
Acer ProShield provides multiple layers of security for business users, including pre-boot authentication, fingerprint registration, and multiple user passwords. We were impressed with the intuitive set up process, which took approximately 7 minutes to complete.
All of our laptops go through a complete series of lab tests. Here is a list of all results for the Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440. Learn more about how we test laptops.
| Test Name | Test Result | Chart |
PCMark Vantage  | 6,522 | Comparison Chart |
PCMark 07 | 2,157 | Comparison Chart |
Geekbench | 4,081 | Comparison Chart |
Boot Time | 58 seconds | Comparison Chart |
LAPTOP Battery Test | 09:59 hours | Comparison Chart |
LAPTOP File Transfer Test | 26.40MBps | Comparison Chart |
LAPTOP File Transfer Test (in min) | 03:13 minutes | Comparison Chart |
3DMark06 | 3,054 | Comparison Chart |
Cyberlink Mediashow Espresso | 00:41 minutes | Comparison Chart |
OpenOffice Spreadsheet | 06:18 minutes | Comparison Chart |
World of Warcraft (autodetect) | 16.00 fps | Comparison Chart |
World of Warcraft (Native Res) | 6 fps | Comparison Chart |
Heat - Touchpad | 88.0 degrees | Comparison Chart |
Heat - G+H Keys | 87.0 degrees | Comparison Chart |
Heat - Bottom | 92.0 degrees | Comparison Chart |
All Test Results Compared
We compared the test results of the Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440 to those of similar Thin and Light Notebooks. Refine this report to see more comparisons.PCMark Vantage
Tests hardware performance by automating some real-world tasks.Learn More.PCMark 07
Geekbench
Tests the performance and speed of the processor and memory performance. Used to benchmark notebooks that can't run PCMark.Learn More.Boot Time
The amount of time the notebook takes to start, from power on to full control of the desktop.Learn More.LAPTOP Battery Test
Continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi until the battery is completely drained. Learn More.LAPTOP File Transfer Test
Rate at which a 4.97GB folder is copied from one folder on the notebook’s hard drive to another.Learn More.3DMark06
Tests graphics performance.Learn More.OpenOffice Spreadsheet
Length of time it takes to perform a complex VLOOKUP operation on 20,000 rows in OpenOffice Calc.World of Warcraft (autodetect)
Frame rate in World of Warcraft at autodetected resolution.World of Warcraft (Native Res)
Average frame rates at laptop's native resolution.Heat - Touchpad
Temperature between the G and H kyes.Heat - G+H Keys
Temperature between the G and H kyes.Heat - Bottom
Temperature between the G and H kyes.Technical Specifications
Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440
Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440
CPU | 1.70GHz Intel Core i5-2557M |
| Operating System | MS Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) |
RAM | 4GB |
RAM Upgradable to | 8GB |
Hard Drive Size | 320GB |
Hard Drive Speed | 7,200rpm |
Hard Drive Type | SATA Hard Drive |
Display Size | 14 |
Native Resolution | 1366x768 |
Optical Drive | None |
Optical Drive Speed | n/a |
Graphics Card | Intel HD Graphics 3000 |
Video Memory | |
Wi-Fi | 802.11a/b/g/n |
| Wi-Fi Model | |
Bluetooth | Bluetooth 2.0 |
Mobile Broadband | |
| Touchpad Size | 3.5 x 2.1 inches |
Ports (excluding USB) | Gigabit Ethernet; HDMI; Headphone; Kensington Lock; Microphone; USB 3.0/eSata; VGA |
USB Ports | 3 |
Card Slots | 5-1 card reader |
| Warranty/Support | One-year Limited International Travelers Warranty, |
| Size | 13 x 9.4 x 0.9 inches |
| Weight | 4 pounds |
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