Acer TravelMate 8471 as a replacement for T410s

Hello everybody,
Now this is a blasphemy, suggesting that an Acer (Acer...what is that? ) could be a replacement for the so much venerated ThinkPad T series - or specifically T410s. Well I think it can.

First, look at this webpage and the reviews of the two machines:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T410s-Notebook.27386.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-TravelMate-8471-Timeline-Notebook.22532.0.html

What is interesting about these reviews:
- Acer scores higher on workmanship, mouse, battery, display, noise, impression etc. than the T410s.

- what is interesting about this site, as you will notice, is the fact that while being a serious reviewer in a similar fashion as notebookreview, it is not located in the U.S. (I believe this is a German site) and it seems that it does not assume away, what is otherwise considered "general knowledge", that Lenovo amongst notebooks something like Mercedes (or BMWs) amongst cars. I like that type of perspective for it's different from what one usually reads on the U.S. websites.
Don't get me wrong: I've been a big fan of IBM (had 4 different computers and this thread is typed on X300) but I've had the impression for a longer time now that Lenovo is not IBM.

Now can I be really serious in terms of comparing a low voltage Acer TravelMate to T410s? Hell yes, I am.
First, do we need all the processor power if all we do (at least most of us who buy business model computers for their work) is productive office work and surfing? I'd say that in this regard TravelMate meets the needs that a common T410s user will have.
Secondly, if you do use your computer outside of office work and surfing, you probably watch movies, look at pictures etc. Well we all know what kind of screens Lenovo offer these days!!! And while Acer is not so much better, it does receive better grades - many users say above average. Can't be said about Lenovo's.
Now my favorite topic: NOISE. Max and average temperatures for T410s are higher than for Travel Mate, also the measurements in terms of decibels. In other terms, the TravelMate seems to be a really silent machine. As we all know by now, that can't be said of T410s and it's beautiful CPU WHINE .
Weight....okay Acer looses..but not by much: while T410s weights 2.36kg including the cord, TravelMate weights 2.44kg (yeah, not a huge difference here). The price: and that is a difference: a comparable configuration from Lenovo will be 1400USD as compared to 1000USD for the Acer. Of course you can get all the discounts (if you wait for them). Let's say with a 20% lenovo discount you will get your T410s for as little as 1200USD. The cheapest Acer is 850USD). Last but not least, if you travel, you need some battery life, right? Well it's not joke: Acers users report they can easily do 8.5 hours (browsing the web+ word processing). We all know that none of the travel mate Lenovos can match this.

All in all, I just don't see why these cannot be compared if one considers what we actually expect and want from computers these days as common business notebook users.

I do admit, though, that there's one thing which Acer cannot beat: the Acer community, compared to Lenovo community on this forum, sucks...not much debate going on there, not much help. For that sake I still love coming here .

 

Great. Go buy one and report back after you have used it for a few months. I am interesting to hear how the 8471 works out in real life use.

 

acer timeline machine uses the same design as the Lenovo V series ideapad... they are probably designed and made by the same ODM manufacturers.

Well if you are happy with the Acer then by all means do purchase it and use it for a year, then report back with the result. But it is highly advisable that you get extended warranty on this type of machine, as this sort of hinge design is not the best in the world.

 

CKX and Lead_ORG,

I noticed that the link I originally provided to both reviews was broken.
Now I've corrected it. You can read the full reviews- before your wrote your comments, it was not possible.
I am curious as to what these guys at Notebookcheck (a comp.magazine) were thinking about when they wrote those reports if it's self-evident that Lenovo is just better and more durable than other brands?

Btw. I do take your comments seriously. So we are speaking about durability here...what is the horizon: 2-3 years before one replace a notebook with a new one? I've seen and have used other brands besides IBM - such as Asus, Dell, Toshiba, HP and they lasted as long at IBMs. So if the horizon is 2-3 years I would not be afraid to say that the computers of all these major brands are more likely than not to last.

Secondly, as for the hinge design. I am curious whether you've seen someone posting on this having problems with the design. I'd like to know before purchasing this computer. I am neither irrational nor crazy: if I see problems, if I see that people and consumers report problems (and if these occur more than sporadically) I am not going to buy the damn thing. Now I can definitely point to problems with the T series which reoccurs again and again - yes my favorite topic of CPU whine which you must be aware of if you read users' reports on this site. And the fact that Lenovo screens are BAD is something none of you would probably dispute - that's too obvious even for the Lenovo community to attempt to deny .

 

this is interesting, honestly! Could you say more about it.

 

Where are you getting the weight of the t410s? Review says 2kg with charger and the tabook says 1.79kg without the charger. So about half a pound lighter. Which might not be a big deal but if you're going for slim and ultra-portable, might as well go all the way.

But other than that, it looks like a good choice for your uses. There really aren't many business grade CULV machines and even less at 14". The Edge 13/Vostro v13/Probook 5310m are other choices as well, but they're slightly smaller and, except for the Edge, with much less battery life.

Dunno about having the same design as the Ideapad V series though, looks much thinner and less bulky. Looks more similar to Asus' UL80vt. Which has not gotten good reviews on build quality, for what ever that's worth.

 

I did read the full reviews before you fixed the broken links... a little Google search goes a long way. Besides, I think I already read the T410s review back when it first came out.

My general impression is that people at NotebookCheck writes very informative reviews. So if they rated the 8471 well, then it should be at least a decent computer.

I have nothing against computers from other companies. I was hesitant to give you specific recommendations against your preference because I knew very little about Acer products, and because your needs appear to be quite different from mine (so what I like may not be what is best for you). I am not an early adopter when it comes to laptops, I only buy products that have been proven by real user experiences. So I am all for (other people) trying new things (with their money), and I really recommend you go get the 8471 and let us know (in the Acer forum) how it works out.

If enough people like their Acer laptops, I will take Acer into consideration when I buy my next laptop... sometime in the year 2017.

 

Acer like pretty much all the other manufacturers/OEMs makes a wide variety of machines. Some good some not so.

That being said I really do not like the type of keyboard they have (from the pictures). That is of course assuming it feels the same as ones I have seen that look just like that on other Acer machines (or similar Sony/Asus).

 

There are some logical fallacies when one tries to compare component scores for these two systems (or any two systems on notebookcheck). It is foolish to treat the scores as some kinda of empirical evidence! People really need to exercise a little more critical judgment when presented with things like this. I haven't seen the acer in person, but here is some food for thought:

1) The reviews were done by different people, and many of the criteria in the overall score are highly subjective--workmanship to an extent, keyboard, mouse, impression, etc.

2) There is no value score so it's safe to assume that those matrix of scores are not on an absolute scale, but one which takes into account of cost and expectation which renders a comparison of the two reviews difficult. For instance, the application performance grade for the T400S was 100% on a processor that is hardly the fastest which is available. Within the context of the system type and cost though, it might be subjectively 'worth' 100%. You can bet looking at the configurations that the thinkpad might have been even more than twice the cost as the acer. Is it twice as good... no, and the scores reflect that, but that doesn't mean on an absolute basis that the machine is inferior.

3) Finally take a look at their weighted average. While both systems were reviewed as "office notebooks", I personally would weigh the criteria differently. The rating is a composite score skewed in a very particular way. Even if you take their distribution at idealized for an office notebook, it is not to say that the thinkpad isn't not superior in any number of other ways. The unit they reviewed had the multitouch screen, ssd drive, etc--it was fully loaded while the acer was not, hell it had a 5400rpm drive.

* Weighted Average Office Notebook:
Workmanship 13%, Keyboard 13%, Mouse 8%, Connectivity 7%, Weight 6%, Battery 8%, Display 10%, Games Performance 1%, Application Performance 6%, Temperature 8%, Noise 10%, Impression 10%

How this a comparison is flawed can be seen just in how "connectivity" was rated-- 92% vs 74%.

3 USB, 1 VGA, 1 Kensington Lock, Audio Connections: Headphone-out, Microphone-in, Card Reader: MS, MS Pro, MMC, SD (SDHC), xD, Acer EasyPort IV

vs

3 USB, 1 VGA, 1 DisplayPort, 1 Kensington Lock, 1 eSata, 1 Docking Station Port, Audio Connections: Kombi-Audio Port, Card Reader: 5-in-1 Kartenleser

Looking at the above, which system do you think scored the lower mark? Yet the system with the display port and e-sata port scored lower. Just to reiterate, an apples to apples comparison based on the notebook check reviews scores is not a good way to evaluate two systems against each other. As much as I love notebook check the composite scores are based on criteria that are way too subjective--even in components you wouldn't think could be. You are going to have to get your hands on both systems yourself to make the most informative judgment.

 

Having done reviews for NBR in the past I can tell you that you have the notebook for a couple weeks, maybe a month before sending it back. In my opinion that's really not long enough to give a good opinion as to the durability or longevity of a notebook. Plus, you're not doing any tweaking like on your own notebook, which may or may not effect the perceived faults.

As to Lenovo vs IBM, times change. Back then notebooks cost a lot of money and less people had them. Notebooks are much more ubiquitous now. I think Lenovo is still giving you a notebook that's still better than anything you're going to find at BestBuy or the like, at half the cost or less of the old days. Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say? Yet people still expect a $3k notebook. It's just a different world.

 

Zaz, you are absolutely right. When I purchased my T400s, I send it back within a week - the issue was not fixed and eventually I had to send it back for a full refund (after the service center had my laptop and tried to fixed it - they could...the CPU whine was just something that these machines are today produced with...at least some, as we can see form other posters on the web. So I totally agree with you.

 

hey Christina,

It's my personal opinion but I think Acer uses below average internal components. i.e. all the things you can't see are going to be the cheapest they can find (power board, motherboard etc). All of my friends (3) who had Acer started having problems after a year or so. (again that might just be bad luck)

Saying that I understand you're pissed with Lenovo and I'm quite pissed with the issue as well (I find their stance unacceptable).

Have you looked at Asus products? They have been toping the latest reliability/support surveys and the specs seem good too. If you don't mind about processor speed look at the UL30VT, if you do mind wait a bit for the UL30JT.

p.s. Although I usually trust notebookcheck.net I find they were particularly harsh in T410s. I mean WTH 79% in mobility??? (btw they are wrong in the 2.02kg weight, they included the power adapter in the measurement...lol). Also 85% in workmanship? they didn't notice any whining noise so I really don't understand what made it lose 15%. It's build quality reminds me of the old IBM laptops...

 

Yeah, you did nail it. I find it unacceptable that they are approaching it this way and I find annoying that some of the hard-core fans here try to downplay the issue.

Yeah, this is something i suspect - i.e that the cheap stuff is hidden. Unfortunately I have not been able to get really any response on the Acer subforum....crazy, either no one has one here or that community just does not talk to each other. That's why I keep coming to Lenovo forum - seems that really there's more debate going on.
As for Asus, yes I have been considering it. Actually I used to have one and i found that it's an under-appreciated brand - it was very reliable. I know for fact that in Europe Asus is quite big these days. That said, I just find them a bit too bulky overall..a bit too clunky too. Will have to check the Ul30JT, I know that the UL30v (i.e. something portable) received bad reviews.

They must have made a mistake in the weights too...I know that porbability is great with that computer as I had one. I took the data from their web but someone metioned it earlier, there should be 0.5pound difference between the two.

The worst part about this whole process: the more one knows about what's out there these days (i.e. the more research I do ) the more difficult to decide: it almost seems that there's really no "PERFECT" computer out there.
I still think that Lenovo, despite my criticism, is the closes to PERFECT but not even they can manage these days.

 

well even consumer laptops can last at least 2 to 3 years (some HP DV laptops do struggle a bit after one year, due to their various overheating issues).... you wouldn't a person has a long life if they live past 55 years old nowadays, when other people have consistently reached 100 years of age.

This is why 3 years warranty is offered for many laptops, because most laptops would start to develop serious problems after 3 years of use, if the first 12 months has been relatively trouble free. They wouldn't offer the 3 years warranty term, if it costs more to service them then what they can get out of the extended warranty fee.

Lenovo have started to offer post warranty warranty service on certain thinkpads starting from T43, which is something commendable.

Many people are still using Thinkpad laptops from 7 years ago, like the T40, R40, X40, and many people will expect to function for 5 more years to come (i expect my Thinkpads to last at least 10 years if not more).

In the end of day, you should buy a product that you think you like and trust in, if it turns out less than what you expect then you can always buy another laptop brand.

But Acer laptops quality are generally so so, they are cheap and if the quality turn out not on par, then you you shouldn't be disappointed.

Hinge problem... well just have a look at the ideapad Y510 (they use a very similar hinge mechanism), etc, there are quite a few posts about that, regarding premature failure. I am not sure whether the plastics that surrounds the hinge is all metallic, if it is it would be slightly better in terms of longevity.

But i dislike your condescending insinuations, we are quite aware of what has been said and hasn't been said. So unless the purpose of these comments are to inflame public opinions, please keep the topic of discussion to what is necessary.