Travelmate 8104

The Acer website lists 3 submodels of this Laptop. Two of the submodels seem to be exactly alike. I cannot find a difference in the specs. They are the TM8104AWLMi (LX.TAL06.096) and the TM8104WLMi-XPP (LX.T7206.086). There appears to be about a $100.00 to $200.00 price difference between the 2 units. Anybody have any insight as to why?

 

The second one has "-XPP" at the end of it. That means that it comes with XP Professional. Could that be why?

If you could copy and paste the specs that would be very helpful.

 

The AWLMi is the newer model of the 8104 with an alumiunium lid and SATA seagate HD.

 

I wasn't aware the 8104 could use SATA....how much is the AWLMi? I am getting my WLMi for $1630 from buy.com.....and probably just either replace the HDD later on with a 7200RPM model or add an external 300GB....

 

Both versions come with XP Professional. The ACER website descriptions read identical.

http://us.acer.com/acerpanam/page4....aram=US&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=2424625818

If I can find a good contact address for ACER I would ask. But as of yet, most support seems to be after sale. Thanks for your help, I will post more if I find anything new.

 

I finally received a response from ACER. It confirms a previous post about the differences.
********************************************
Thank you for contacting Acer America. I apologize for the delay in
responding to your email. The only difference between the two models is
the Travelemate 8104AWLMI model ships with a SATA HDD with an aluminum case
and the 8104WLMI only has a ATA hard drive.

Respectfully,
Karen Cavil
Acer America E-Mail Technical Support
*********************************************

 

Ah thanks for posting! That is interesting...

Well, if you deem an aluminum case and a SATA hard drive worth the extra money...why not..aluminum is a great building material.

The advantage with SATA is not with the speed - it's the fact that it uses less CPU usage to access it and also it requires slightly less power to run.

 

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201980462&loc=101&sp=1

I am confused, I'd like to buy the AWLMi model, but the above link posts contradicting information:

Acer TravelMate TM8104WLMi-XPP NoteBook Pentium M 760 (2.0GHz) 15.4" WSXGA+ 1GB DDR2 533 100GB DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility RADEON X700 - LX.TAL06.096 -

It's TM8104WLMi-XPP, but is designated LX.TAL06.096 and no mention of the hard drive type.


Another merchant also lists contradicting information:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=265240&affiliate=pricegrabber

It says Acer TravelMate 8100 TM8104AWLMi, but lists 100GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive under Storage.


Please HELP!

 

All the hard drives in the 8104 run at 5400RPM.

Chaz

 

Buy.com also has an 8104 XPP model listed as out of stock with the LX.T7206.086 model number. I just ordered the notebook from Buy.com also - we'll see whether it's the .086 or .096.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10392754&loc=101&sp=1

 

Ah issue resolved. The Buy.com one is the TM8104AWLMi (LX.TAL06.096) with the aluminum cover and SATA.

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=112269&highlight=8104

 

Hi yoshjosh,

How long have you been using this laptop? I am considering buying either this one or Toshiba M45-s359. This one has more features but it is more expensive, what can you say about its display? Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in any real shop to evaluate the display myself. Are there any shines on the display? What about the colors? Is the display bright if it is not at maximum brightness (say, we have some two or three additional points to add to the brightness)? Does it have the "mirror" display?

Thank you for the reply and sorry for my poor english

 

I ordered it last week and it hasn't arrived yet, so no review. I'll post something when I get it.

 

Metil, I don't think your English is bad at all.

Here is a review of the Gigabyte W511A multimedia notebook - during the review they compare it to the TravelMate 810x. You'll get a good idea of how it stacks up against other laptops.

 

Thanks ChazMan421,

The review is really interesting though it involves the comparison with TM8103 rather than with 8104. I will wait till yoshjosh receives his laptop and listen to his opinion about it. I just couldn't find this notebook to take a look at it, it is almost in every on-line shop but there is no real shops where I can find it

 

The TM8103 is the exact same thing as the 8104, just doesn't have as high of a hardware specification. The screen, video card, etc. is the same.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the clarification. I think I still have some time before Thanksgiving to wait till yoshjosh shares his opinion as well as to search the web for other reviews.
Thanks for the help.

 

I received the notebook a few days ago and am testing it out. So far, it seems great and insanely fast. No dead pixels, nice aluminum cover (looks different than the reviews I have seen) and much quieter than I would have thought. I can just barely hear it during normal use. During processor-intensive tasks, the fan kicks in, but even then it's not too loud.

I'll post a fuller review as soon as I have a chance and have tried out a few games on it.

 

Hi yoshjosh,

Thank you for posting. Did you buy it at buy.com? What do you think about its display? I find a lot of laptops having the same problem - the colors are not saturated, looks like the display has some smoke film on it. Sorry, I can't describe it more precisely. Are the colors bright on TM8104?
BTW, today I have noticed another Acer laptop - Aspire 9504 which is even better than 8104. It has 2Gb of RAM and 17" display. However, it costs too much - about $500 more than TM8104. The RAM is not that crucial because the upgrade of it will certainly be less than $500 but I think about the display... If I am going to watch movies on my laptop (no games though) will it be ok to watch them on 15.4" display of TM8104?

 

I bought it at Buy.com. I noticed that the price has gone up slightly since I purchased. The display looks great to me - no film that I can see. The picture looks better than the LCD monitor I bought 2 years ago. The colors seem bright to me - certainly better than the Apple iBook and older Powerbook I was also looking at.

Movies look fantastic on the screen. It isn't a coated screen, in case you prefer that. Some people like that better.

 

Hi yoshjosh,

Good to know you like the way it shows movies, that was my most concern in sense of display... What do you mean by "coated screen"? Is it some special term? (sorry, I am not that profficient in english )