Crumb-collector
We have a few design gripes. Firstly the isolated
keyboard, while
comfortable enough, has huge gaps underneath each key, which means any
dust, crumbs or other detritus is guaranteed to fall through the gaps
and get stuck.
Secondly, we would have liked to see some hardware media keys somewhere
on the laptop -- beneath the 5820T's unassuming exterior beats the heart
of a powerful media laptop, and unfortunately the presence of that
impressive internal hardware isn't reflected in the design.
The trackpad is very sensitive, but not particularly smooth, which often led to juddery cursor movement. Furthermore, the actual mouse buttons were very resistant -- after a day of solid use our thumbs were feeling decidedly sore from having to press so hard to click. On the other hand, the trackpad does support multitouch, and we found this made browsing the Web very easy indeed.
Port in a storm
In terms of ports, the 5820T is pretty jam-packed
for a machine of its size. Around the edges you'll find four USB ports,
VGA and HDMI out -- hooking this laptop up to an HDTV will be a simple
affair -- plus an Ethernet port, a DVD rewriter, 3.5mm headphones and
microphone sockets. On the front you'll find an SD card slot, and
sitting just above the screen is a 2-megapixel webcam.
Conclusion
Thanks to those switchable graphics, the 5820T
performs well as a light, portable, power-saving device and also does a
decent job of turning its hand to more intensive computing tasks.
Unfortunately, this impressive range of tricks isn't reflected in the design -- no media keys, a rather dim screen and a frustrating trackpad mean that even if the 5820T is capable of some impressive computing feats, you might not enjoy actually using it.
It's perfectly functional, but for £900 you might want to look for something with a little more flair, such as the thinner Asus UL50v, which offers longer battery-life. Perhaps the bombastic Alienware M11x would suit? It's an 11-inch netbook with some truly stonking hardware for a real blend of portability and power.
The 5820T will be available very soon, according to Acer, who provided us with the price.
Edited by Nick Hide
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User reviews4
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ajh1551 30 March 2012
Comment: and the speakers and camera suck.
ajh1551 30 March 2012
Good: decent battery life
Bad: trackpad doesnt work if holding 2 keys (awful for games), screen, expensive, keyboard misses strokes, very slow.
Comment: decent battery life however.... as i said its very expensive and they have used incredibly cheap components, the trackpad is uncomfortable and doesnt work if you are holding 2 keys down, the keyboard misses strokes making it impossible to type anything without loads of spell checking and one of my screen hinges have broken and so when i open and close the screen it splits it and i have to spend 10 minutes trying to get it to go roughly back into place. It says it is an HD screen but if im honest it sucks. It overeats all the time and keeps freezing even when i just have 1 or 2 windows open. I really dont recommend this laptop. (I spent 5 minutes correcting missed keystrokes)
ajh1551 17 February 2012
Good: decent battery life
Bad: really slow laggy, cant even handle minecraft ! when your playing a small game if you hold down 2 letters you cant use the trackpad for some reason, keyboard gets dirty because of the huge gap, fan is constantly going even though firefox is the only thing open, burns my leg after 10 minutes of it being turned on because it gets so hot.
Comment: wouldnt recommend especially with the huge price tag.
See all 4 user reviews