Acer Timeline Laptop Makes Me Want to Get Back to School

posted by Ken Kaplan on June 29, 2009

After uploading this video earlier today, it really got me thinking how much I’d love to be back in college. No, I wouldn’t trade anything to travel back in time — I like movin’ ahead! — but I get the feeling today’s students are very inspired by all of the industry transformations and problems that need solving.

The video is about Acer Aspire Timeline with Intel Inside, but it also shows scenes of a student using her laptop from sun up to sun down. I bet more people every day turn their laptop on as soon as they get out of bed and keep it running until they hit the sheets. Acer shows it’s now possible to run a thin, full featured laptop as many as eight hours straight on one full batter charge.

A few years ago, we did a survey that showed more people were actually bringing their laptop to bed (for better or worse). And I remember talking to a 25-year-old New Yorker who told me she Instant Messages her boyfriend in bed as they sat quietly shoulder to shoulder. Extreme, but the point was that we’re more comfortable with technology. We’re more interested in computers because it’s they’ve become more useful in helping us achieve are aspirations.

In this video, the student leaves for school and leaves behind her electrical plug. I do that about twice a month. I can survive about seven hours with my laptop’s heavy, bulky extended battery.

She spends the day unplugged but tuned into her laptop. Intel’s ultra-low voltage (ULV) processors hit the scene during Computex and since then laptop makers have been busy designing a new breed of ultra thin and light laptops.

The Acer Aspire Timeline series is sleek and squeezes down to less than an inch thick.

The 13.3” model weighs 3.5 lbs, which is about half the wight of my current two-year-old laptop. The 15.6” model comes in at 5.3 lbs. The Timeline has Wi-Fi N built in and you can get it equipped with WiMAX for use in places like Baltimore, MD, Portland, OR and Atlanta, GA.

Engadget had this to say:

If you’re looking to get the long and short of it, here it is: those seeking great battery life in a relatively affordable package need look no further, but performance junkies should definitely hunt elsewhere.

I’m a performance junky, but I can no longer live with just one laptop. And if I were heading back to college, having something ultra thin might lighten the messenger bag a bit and would likely last all day until I returned home to finish editing videos on my girthier muscle machine.

 

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tagged: acer, aspire, laptop, light, mobility, notebook, thin, timeline, ultrathin, ulv, wifi, wimax, wireless