New Acer TravelMate 8100 Available

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by athreya

 

X600 only gets about 3000 with 3dmark2003, while X700 gets nealy 6000.I think it is obvious which one is powerful or we can say much more powerful!I think the tiny differnce (compared with the huge difference of Graphic card) of the harddisk(5400 and 7200) is not a big problem,and you can change the hd if you will ,but the graphic card ......never dreaming about changing it!
So i think 8104 is definitely the right way to go!

 

I think it's going to be a while before we see many SATA laptops. Maybe the next round of releases. Currently it looks like Fujitsu is the only company producing 2.5" SATA drives. I don't think laptop makers are going include SATA drives until there is a wider availability.

The hard drive swap is easy. I did it with my 1681WLMi, 7200 rpm made all the difference. I couldn't believe Acer shipped it with a 60GB 4200 rpm drive, it was absolutley horrible. It took so long for BF1942 maps to load that I literally could take a shower between rounds if I wanted. What were they thinking??? The hard drive was 1st weak link with the 1681, (the second would be only having 64MB on the Mobility 9700). I swapped in a Hitachi 60GB 7200 rpm. That was an easy decision as they were both the same size.

I'll probably get the 8104 and see how the 5400 is. I have a Seagate Momentus 2.5" 40GB 5400 rpm in my Dell, it is a fairly fast drive, just about as fast as the Hitachi I would guess. I don't game on this laptop though so I can't compare things like map loading.

If it the 8104's 5400 rpm drive sucks then I guess I'll get another Hitachi 60GB 7200 rpm or, the 80GB if they ever release it. Other than a 5400 rpm drive though, the 8104 has the most impressive specs for the money right now.

By the way, I didn't notice any real increse in heat or noise and there was no noticeable decrese in battery time when i switched from the 4200 to the 7200.


Acer Aspire 1680WLMi w/ Hitachi 60GB 7200RPM Drive

 

8104's 5400 is pretty good,it has 16M buffer and usually hd only has 2M or 8M buffer.

 

8104 has released in hongkong recently,but only with 256M*2 memory and 80G HDD(costs 17999 hongkong dollar, about 2300 us dollar),I think the memory is quite hard to upgrade! A pair of 512M DDRII 533 memory costs about 300 us dollar in China,so the total cost will be 2600 usdollar.
I hope the 8104 released in China(mainland) will be same with the 8104 in us or euro.But yesterday I read some news says that acer will only release 8102 in China(mainland),I hope it is not ture[V].
8102: 1.73G 256M 60G(4200rpm) DVD-CDRW.there are too many things to upgrade!

 

I ordered an 8104 from CDW in January. I was told I was number 8 on the list and it would ship about a week and a half ago. It still hasn't shipped yet! Anyone else order from CDW and recieve theirs yet? Anyone hear when they will be in?

 

I wonder how the 8104 compares with the new APple Powerbooks just released? Does anyone have a comparison of the processors anywhere?

 

I am also interested in 8104, but CDW site says 1-2 weeks still.

Even a few of the new HP's said days rather than weeks.

Does anyone have one in their hands and where did you get it?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by athreya

 

thanks for that very useful link. I was actually contemplating a powerbook instead of a 8104. But with credible rumors that the G5 powerbook is around the corner, it perhaps makes sense to wait for that and settle for the acer for now

 

B737Capt: I ordered my 8104 from PCNation 1 week ago. At the time I was deciding between CDW & PCNation. CDW did not have a firm ship date and was est. the end of Feb. PCNation said that they have 50 on order with March 3rd as the ship date.

I'm hoping that they will arrive sooner. I was #7 in the cue at the time of my order.

 

Guys
the first serious competition to the 8104 is on the horizon:
The Fujitsu n3510.
It appears to have everything that Acer has and also a TV Tuner (Optional), Express Card (inbuilt). Has a bad video card (x300) , is heavier and thicker, no DVI or Bluetooth!

2) Also there is relative silence on this thread for a few days. Has ANYONE received their 8104 yet?

 

Fujitsu is 7.48 pounds and 1.6' thick. VERY bulky. more expensive than Acer 8100 with similar features.

 

i mentioned the weight and thickness myself. But price wise it is cheaper

 

I know the suspense is killing me. Last I heard , the earliest I could get my fat fingers on the 8104 is 01-Mar-05. The kicker is I 'need' it before the 21st Feb (well need can be a relative term [} ] )

One local place said they 'should' hit Canadian shores (Toronto at least) on 18th Feb - but that was 'they' - I think I am SOL till - another guy I am dealing with is watinng until they hit Vancouver shores - suppose to the 28th February .......... so methinks it will be March 'ish ....oh well ......[V][V]

 

Patiently awaiting on my 8104 from CDW - my account executive is just telling me now (after slipping his date twice) that I'll get it two days after they get it from Acer America. Probably alot of us are just waiting, huh? I noticed CNET has started a review - so here's the link if anyone's not already doing likewise: http://reviews.cnet.com/Acer_TravelMate_8100/4505-3121_7-31263282.html - I suppose a future flurry of activity on this forum will indicate that they're hitting North American shores too, eh?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by raguu

 

B737 Capt: Nope - and that's what's so bothersome! Oh, well - we wait! raguu

 

I just came across this great review with super pic's:

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?p=661618#post661618

hope it doesn't get you any more anxious than you probably already are

my order with PCNation got pushed back from March 3rd to the 10th

 

HOT NEWS FLASH FROM CDW - Eighteen (18) ACER Travelmate 8100's just in from Taiwan - I'm number 7 on the list - I'm assuming the other 17 are all spoken for - Account Executive promising 2nd Day Air Shipment to me departing Chicago today or Monday !!!!! Yippee !!!!!

 

Great news for you raguu, and maybe some others in the US.

In the UK, I was told a couple of weeks ago by both Acer and a reseller that they'd be available about now. Yesterday a reseller told me that it'd be 1st-half of March, or maybe late Feb, and Acer aren't being very communicative.

The configurations aren't even available on the UK site yet, so I don't know for sure that we'll have a choice of 8103 or 8104!

So have they had a problem (maybe with the supply of one component), or is this typical behaviour for a new notebook launch, either generally or just for Acer?

Whadayareckon?


Reg

 

CDW's already out of 8104s again. This order went to reducing the backorder list... As will the next shipment coming in and probably most of the shipment after that (in March). Very friendly and direct customer service guy, though.

 

Raguu, Thanks much for the update. I've been following this thread for a few weeks and ordered from CDW about the same time as you and discovered that I was # 16 and will be getting the beautiful 8104 on Tuesday.
!!!Double Yippee!!![ ]

 

Anybody know what buy.com means when they say "We are still working on shipping the following item(s) from order #XXXXXXXX." but the order status is still "Sent to Warehouse"?

Do they mean they got their monthly shipment of a dozen 8104s in and tossed them to the first few folks of the 576 on the backorder list, of whom I was not one?

I'm having to ask here because buy.com/support says "Remember that our agents do not have more specific product information than what is listed on our site," which, given my experience with three other vendors today, means that "We at buy.com don't give our customer support folks the information necessary to do their job as well as the average customer might expect."

Thoughts?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by kiezkahse
"Remember that our agents do not have more specific product information than what is listed on our site"
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>
I think that means that their support couldn't tell you if the laptop had 1 or 2 sticks of ram. They may be able to tell you what your order is doing, though.

Arima W622
Athlon 64 (Turion) 3200+ | 1gb DDR400 low latency | 60gb 7200 rpm (hopefully SATA w/ NCQ) | 128MB X700 radeon | 15.4" 1680x1050 screen | 1.25" thin | 5.69lb | 4.5 hours battery life
sign me up!

 

CDW finally comes through - got a UPS Tracking number moments ago - hopefully my 8104 will arrive on Monday, this Tuesday at the latest - hard to finally believe - "Siestaturtle": any word on yours? Honest review to follow - if this all isn't but a dream! Stay tuned............

 

Congrats Raguu. It's sounds like a dream come true! I'm still showing backordered so probably the best thing is sleep and check in the a.m. or I'll go nuts. Hope yours arrives soon.

 

One 13 pound box heading my way via UPS 2nd Day Air - I'm hoping I'll see it Monday when I get home from work! Funny thing that CDW is doing now on the electronic Invoice - they show you a picture of the boxed laptop in the shipping box - must have something do with potential insurance/shipping claims? Siesta - I'm sure yours will ship Monday - my Account Executive had indicated mine would ship Friday or at the latest Monday - though you would think that a place like CDW could handle 18 laptops in one afternoon - even with taking a picture of each of the little newborns [:I] !

 

How cool. Can't wait to see the little picture of the newborn. I'll chill until Monday and watch it creep across the country. Looking foreword to your review Raguu. And huury up Acer. Lots of folks are waiting for their new baby.

 

I have found very good review on hardwarezone.com. Here is the link
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=14&id=1395

 

It truly blows that availability is such an issue with his notebook. It would seem that supplies would start to loosen up by now. Hang in there. It looks like things will vastly improve the first week of March.

Just an update on my 8104. I've been using it steadily since my last post with no problems, though I haven't received my replacement memory module yet. I've been too busy to call about that.

However, I have run into a number of annoyances with external video. First, with DVI, the laptop doesn't want to drive anything with a higher resolution than the laptop's own LCD. When I connect it to a Dell 20" (1600x1200), it will only work up to 1280x1024. It tries 1400x1050, but the Dell LCD doesn't support that. When I set it to 1600x1200, the screen is just black, but occasionally will show a bit of an image. It's not a connection problem since there's never a problem at lower rez, and it doesn't appear to be a driver issue. I've used both the Acer provided driver and the Omega Catalyst 5.1 drivers with the same results. I've also tried tools like UltraMon. On VGA, the Dell LCD can run off the laptop just fine at 1600x1200. Go figure.

But more annoying is that I can't make an external display (DVI or VGA) the primary, regardless of which driver I'm using or even with 3rd party tools like UltraMon. [ !] The reason I got my laptop was to be able to take it with me overseas for my fieldwork and have a way to easily take it with me out in the field, but still be able to connect it to a desktop monitor and keyboard when back in my flat. Anyone have any ideas on how to trick it into making it the primary display?

Todd

 

Todd: I'm using ATI's HYDRAVISION software on my ACER 803LCi to control different monitors - my current set-up is a Dell 26" LCD as primary (or Desktop 1 in ATI speak) monitor at its native resolution of 1280 x 768 without any problem. I personally didn't realize that DELL had an LCD capable of 1600 x 1200 - wow! The software which is a free download from ATI includes a task bar icon called "MultiDesk" which allows you to rapidly switch between 9 different monitors or the same monitors with nine different settings or any variety thereof. Hope this will work for you - I'm assuming right now that it's applicable to the X700 PCI-E video card in the 8104. I'll find out shortly myself about this issue should mine ever get here - hopefully tomorrow! Do keep the comments coming - they'll help all of us downstream. Rick

 

Thanks for the tip raguu

I hadn't used Hydravision much before, so I took a close look at it. With Hydravision, I can approximate having the external LCD be the primary. It will move dialog boxes and remember window positions, etc. But, it still isn't seamless. I can tell that each time I've will be using the laptop without the external display, then reconnect the external display I'll have to do some tweaking to set stuff back - a minor annoyance, but closer.

I have determined that, at least on VGA, it is a Windows/driver issue. The laptop will boot up from the external display, showing the POST info on the external, not on the laptop's LCD, but as soon as Windows boots up and the driver kicks in, it reverts to the built-in LCD and won't let me make the external display primary. Frustrating!! Any other ideas would be appreciated. I think the next stop will be to call tech support and see what they say.

 

In my experience, the first thing I do is make sure that the driver is set up how I want with regards to dual view or spanning across both displays (as apposed to cloning or something). Once I do that, I go back to the basic settings page (the very first page that lets you pick res/color depth and shows you the picture of your displays, then drag the displays to where you want them. At work, I had issues getting my primary display on the right yet having my second display on the left -- Once I dragged the second to the left of the primary, everything was dandy. Once you get them positioned, then mess with primary and secondary and which one has the start menu.

By no means is that a guide - just a suggestion from someone who has used dual displays about a year ago, but from someone who will definitely be using dual displays once I get my laptop

Good luck

Arima W622
Athlon 64 (Turion) 3200+ | 1gb DDR400 low latency | 60gb 7200 rpm (hopefully SATA w/ NCQ) | 128MB X700 radeon | 15.4" 1680x1050 screen | 1.25" thin | 5.69lb | 4.5 hours battery life
sign me up!

 

Thanks joeld100

Just today I got my Dell 2005FPW 20" widescreen LCD. It's the same resolution as the 8104's built-in LCD (1680x1050). I've fiddled with settings a bit more. With the new 2005FPW I can get mirroring to work perfectly by setting it to "both" displays in the BIOS. Windows doesn't have a problem with this since the resolution is the same between the two. This is probably the setup that I will continue to use. I don't really have a strong need for more screen real estate, I just wanted the external to be my primary. If I get time I might call tech support and see if they know how I can make the external primary to have the extra space.

One note for everyone else considering buying an 8104 - Using the 8104 right next to a Dell 2001FP and a Dell 2005FPW, it is clear that the 8104's LCD color fidelity doesn't quite match up with the Dell's, mostly in greens. Greens are notoriously hard to reproduce, but the difference is noticable with the Dells being vibrant and warm, and the 8104 being cool and drab. In day-to-day work I don't think you'd notice, but graphic artists and the like might want to take that into consideration.

Todd

 

Just a note that there is a small Acer app found under Acer eManager called Acer eSetting. In there, it does have additional display settings. I between this and the ATI advanced driver settings I was able to get the external display (via DVI) to be the only display (disabling the built-in LCD). From there I was able to use the ePowerManagement settings to adjust the action when the lid is closed so that it doesn't put the computer on standby. Now, I am set up pretty much the way I wanted - having the laptop closed and using only an external display. [ ] Happy days!!

Todd

 

So will Acer eSetting allow you to use an external 1600x1200? I want to use a Dell 2001 initially but then plan on upgrading to the new Dell 2405FPW (which is a 24" 1920x1200 resolution) in a couple of months. Does this eSetting utility allow these two resolutions for the external display?

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/monitors/topics/en/monitor_feature?c=us&cs=RC956904&l=en&s=hied

Also, are you using the Acer ezDock port replicator? If so does it have pass thrus for all connections including the DVI.

 

Newegg has the 8104 as of 11:30pm EST

 

..............and I don't! You?

 

No!
Called my rep. at CDW this morning and I am now # 1 on their new list.
Last FRi. # 16-they received 18. Hmmmm

I thought you would get yours today. Good luck tomorrow.

Went ahead and ordered another one from Newegg. I'll see what shakes out tomorrow.

 

Does anyone have detailed specs on the hard drive that ships in the 8103? I have a Samsung 5400rpn with 8mb cache sitting at home and want to decide whether to sell it or put it in the 8103 that I hope to order tomorrow. 80Gb is ample space so I'd happily trade some space for speed - but if the 100Gb drive has similar or better specs that would be great.

 

The only differences between the 8103 and 8104 are the CPU (760 vs 750) and the ram (1gig vs 512 (1 stick))

-Kevin

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by geekraver

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by geekraver

 

geekraver: the spec of the 8103 depends on where you are.

I think the US spec has a 5400rpm 100GB drive, but the UK 8103 apparently has a 4200rpm 80GB drive.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by siestaseaturtle

 

https://www.thenerds.net/productpage.asp?un=325136 shows a stock of 2, but I just ordered 1 -- we'll see if this turns out to be lucky for me later today (as I expidited it). Check PriceGrabber, though, as they've got a few other shops listed now, too. (Like NewEgg.)

TheNerds.net is a lot cheaper on the price, but obscenely expensive on the S&H. Overall, though, it came out $1 cheaper than the buy.com order I cancelled -- their customer service people couldn't tell me what was going on down in their warehouse.

 

Has anyone received their notebook yet? First thoughts?

 

First Thoughts: (After only 3 hours & in no particular order)
- Wide, thin and gorgeous - reminds me alot of the Apple Powerbooks
- Quiet (though fan is constantly running - can't hear H.D.D. at all)- much quieter than my Acer 803 LCi
- Network CAT5 cable plug-in point has no tx/rc indicator lights
- DVD Burner is fast & quiet (eRecovery Backup onto a single DVD took only 12 minutes - or takes 4 CD's)
- Recommend quickly installing WindowsXP "Clear Type" - makes for a much more enhanced display
- Heat is negligible - mainly coming out of the exhaust port on left side - also little bit of initial burn-in odor
- It detected wireless networks in my neighborhood that I hadn't detected previously with my Acer 803LCi
- During re-boots wants to default to it's own display versus my "external" Dell LCD monitor - (Alt F5 is now my favorite keystroke!)
- If I shut the lid - it goes into Stand-By - no matter what I set the Acer ePower Management settings too! (Gotta work on that one - I primarily use an external LCD display)
- Very satisfied after only 3 hours of ownership - welcome any suggestions - especially on the "Stand-By" issues - wish that the ePower settings hadn't overwritten the normal Windows Power Settings in Control Panel!
- In summary - a gorgeous laptop, great feel in the hands, fast, quiet, wonderful display - hope the rest of you guys get yours in the coming days (more to follow)........................Rick

 

raguu: Congrat's on receiving your 8104! I purchased mine last night at newegg.com and just received my Fed Ex shipping # [8D].

Can you explain what the eRecovery is? Is it a program like Norton Ghost? I just purchased Ghost 9.0. BTW: if anyone is having problems with DVD drive compatability with Ghost 9.0 (as I have) you can work around it by creating the image to another folder on your hard drive then drag it to the DVD.