Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi
Under the lid
The lid of the notebook is latched with two locks having a
common axis. This solution allows to eliminate the gap between the lid
and the housing, and the fastener keeps the notebook firmly and
reliably in place when locked. The lid is fastened on the housing with
two hinges and is easy to open without warps even if you pull it at one
side only.
The upper part of the display frame is made wide enough.
To some extent, it is the built-in movable camera that prompted the
manufacturer to follow this move. In most notebooks with a built-in
digital camera, the latter is fitted firmly above the display. So to
tune the camera position precisely the user has to turn the display
thus sacrificing the comfort at work. In TravelMate 8200 this issue has
been solved completely - the camera can be rotated around the
longitudinal axis at 225 degrees.
That is, not only can the user fit the camera for taking
pictures of his/her face, the camera can be even turned for shooting
the space behind the notebook! But the user won't be able to turn the
device "upwards". In any case, you don't have to shoot the ceiling or
skies but to adjust the camera for the face it suffices to turn the
camera "downwards" - the display is anyway slanted forward a bit.
The keyboard in TravelMate 8200 is not ordinary but made
in the FineTouch style (bent at a 5 degrees corner).
The manufacturer assures that the shape offers more
usability than the regular of rectangular shape. That is hard to argue
against. The positioning of keys in FineTouch Keyboard is standard -
the same as on most notebooks.
The touchpad under the keyboard is not displaced sideways
but is in the central part. It is made in the classical style, not on
the same level with the housing like it is done on many notebook models
but inside a small recession. The trait of the device is the
proprietary 4-way joystick that allows moving the cursor not only
vertically, but horizontally as well.
Under the keyboard, there are five buttons one of which
(the square one) is in charge of the power supply, with the other four
prolonged ones - for quick launch of various applications like Internet
browser, a mail client, as well as a power management program. All the
buttons can be programmed to suite your needs.
TravelMate 8200 can be characterized as one of the most
functional and well thought-out notebook models in terms of comfort and
usability. The USB ports distributed over the sides, all whatever
interfaces to expand the available capabilities, data-protection
facilities - all these tell that TravelMate 8200 is striving for a
leadership in its market sector.
Display
The resolution 1680x1050 pixels over the 15.4 " diagonal
is hard to perceive even by ear. It's hard to believe that in this case
you can produce a more or less visible picture. Nevertheless, the image
of the monitor of TravelMate 8200 can be characterized as superb.
Excellent color rendition, very high image clearness, high contrast,
and wide range of brightness adjustment. Additionally, along with the
wide angles of view and High Gloss coating we get a perfect notebook
with the matrix suitable for games and movies. Neither gaps in the grey
scale nor problems with scaling during tests were found.
Audio
Alas, but not all can be fitted inside a compact housing
with a 15" display. The manufacturer hasn't managed to do with the
onboard audio. The onboard speakers can't playback anything more than
some part of middle and high frequencies, and they sound too quiet.
Cooling system
Talking about the cooling and noise, we should note that
TravelMate 8200 is designed in a way that it heats up quite immensely,
especially after long intensive work. The notebook makes an immense
noise but not for long time - the fan stops as soon as possible. On the
whole, the cooling system is designed not bad at all - neither good or
bad surprises were found.
Operation operation specifics
Using TravelMate 8200 on the desk is very convenient - the
computer doesn't slide, and the view of the keyboard is fantastic too
to the slight slope of the housing. Using the computer on the lap is of
course somehow inconvenient, but generally you can take the novelty
with you to journeys and travels without caring for some convenient
workplace in a hotel or cafe. Besides, working in the "field"
conditions you don't have to care much about the overheating since
TravelMate 8200 offers more than enough vent holes. As far as the
weight is concerned, some may find it annoying to carry three something
kilos around, but if you knew what power and functionality is inside
the mass, you would certainly resign yourself to that fact quite soon.
For the first time, typing on the FineTouch keyboard
seemed quite awkward. Despite the small angle of bend, the fingers
wouldn't hit the needed keys. So, if you had good skills of blind
typing or simply a good typing speed you will have to spend two-three
days for getting used to the new keyboard. If you don't type much or
regularly, then you don't have to worry about the bent keyboard at all.
The tactile feedback of the keys is really distinct and there is no gap
- even the slightest. In fact, those who are into ergonomic keyboards
may spend much less time getting used to.
Performance tests
It is easy to guess that a mobile computer based on Intel
945 PM chipset, having the powerful to date dual-core processor Intel
Core Duo T2500 of 2 GHz clock speed and a huge (for the mobile
computer) DDR2 533 MHz memory capacity as much as 2 GB can easily
pretend for a good replacement to the home-based desktop PC. Besides,
its most recent video system ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 may turn
TravelMate 8200 to a gaming center.
We tested the overall performance with SiSoftware Sandra
2004, and the results are presented in the below table. For comparison,
the table presents results for two recently tested notebooks ASUS A6000
with the following specifications: processor - AMD Turion 64 M MT-37
(2.0 GHz), memory - 1 GB DDR 333 MHz (PC2700), video adapter - NVIDIA
GeForce Go 7300 256 MB; and ASUS V6000V with the following
specifications: processor - Intel Pentium M 2.13 GHz, memory - 1 GB
DDR2, video adapter - ATI Mobility Radeon
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SiSoftware
Sandra
2004
|
Acer
TravelMate 8200
|
ASUS A6000
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ASUS V6000V
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CPU arithmetic Benchmark
|
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Dhrystone ALU, MIPS
|
18001
|
9272
|
9198
|
|
Whetstone FPU, MFLOPS
|
5546
|
3163
|
2966
|
|
Whetstone iSSE2, MFLOPS
|
7179
|
4055
|
3795
|
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CPU Multimedia Benchmark
|
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Integer x4 iSSE2, it/s
|
37926
|
19117
|
20286
|
|
Floating point x4 iSSE2, it/s
|
42218
|
20563
|
22412
|
|
Memory Bandwidth
|
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RAM Integer Buffered iSSE2, Mb/s
|
3750
|
2219
|
2892
|
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RAM Float Buffered iSSE2 Mb/s
|
3759
|
2218
|
2899
|
As you can see from this table, TravelMate 8200 is of
undisputable advantage over competitors at all the parameters. In
particular, it is interesting to see the prevalence of the dual-core
novelty by Intel over AMD's Turion 64
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