Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T-6440

Combining the svelteness of an ultraportable with the screen size of a larger laptop, the Acer TravelMate TimelineX 8481T attempts to deliver the best of both worlds for business users. This sleek system crams a 14-inch display into a 13.3-inch chassis, offers seriously long battery life, and weighs just 4 pounds. Small-business users will also appreciate this Core i5 notebook's solid performance and host of security features. Read on to find out if Acer has what it takes to take on the best small-business notebooks.

Design

The Acer TravelMate 8481T-6440 has a modern, minimalist design. Aside from the gray brushed-metal Acer logo, the black matte metallic lid is bare, unless you count the scores of fingerprint smudges it gathered as soon as we touched it. The only other accents are the chrome-plated hinges.
The TravelMate's interior has the same black metallic motif as the exterior. A chiclet-style keyboard sits in a slightly recessed keyboard deck, while the display is surrounded by an impressively slim bezel. A row of buttons for the Launch Manager, InstantView Manager, Acer Backup Manager, Microphone audio control, and power sit above the keyboard in the top right-hand corner.

As with Acer's other TimelineX notebooks, the TravelMate 8481T is defined by its slim profile. At 4 pounds, it's lighter than competitors such as the 4.6-pound pound Toshiba Tecra R840 and the 4.4-pound Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420s. The 8481T's petite 13 x 9.4 x 0.9-inch frame is only slightly smaller than the Tecra R840 (13.4 x 9.4 x 0.8-1.1 inches) as well as the E420s (13.7 x 9.3 x 1.2 inches).
The only thing that mars the 8481T's slimness is its battery, which protrudes about an inch out the back of the notebook. However, it tilts the keyboard toward the user, which some may find more comfortable for typing.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Acer 8481T's island-style keyboard has a generous amount of spacing between the flat keys, which provided solid feedback. We scored 50 words per minute on the Ten Thumbs Typing Test with a one-percent error rate, which is comparable to our desktop keyboard score. We noticed that the deck exhibited a tiny amount of flex, but our bigger complaint is that this Timeline lacks a backlit keyboard. A $999 notebook should have one.
The relatively large 3.5 x 2.1-inch Synaptics touchpad allowed us to navigate around the desktop with ease. Gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scrolling, and rotation worked well. Highlighting and copying text was a breeze, as was starting and ending slideshows with a three-finger flick or launching Google Chrome with three-finger flick.
The two discrete mouse buttons on the Timeline X 8481T felt slightly mushy, but they still managed to be responsive. While we would have preferred that the fingerprint reader was placed somewhere on the palm rest instead of between the mouse buttons, we found it unobtrusive.

Heat

After streaming videos on Hulu for 15 minutes, the touchpad measured a temperate 88 degrees Fahrenheit while the space between the G and H keys measured 87 degrees. The 8481T's underside was a reasonable 92 degrees; we consider temperatures below 95 degrees comfortable.

Display and Audio

The super-slim bezel on the TimelineX 8481T allowed Acer to cram a 14.1-inch display into a chassis that would normally hold a 13.3-inch panel. Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" video was bright and vivid on the LED-backlit display. Even though matte displays aren't traditionally as rich as glossy screens, the 1366 x 768 screen on the 8481T offered bright cotton-candy pinks and emerald greens; the blacklight scenes at the end of the video were a sassy ultraviolet playland. When we watched The Three Musketeers 1080p full-screen YouTube trailer, the rich reds and opulent golds popped against a crystal-blue sky.
The audio on the TimelineX 8481T left something to be desired. We found ourselves straining to hear movie dialogue. Listening to music was slightly better, but it was not until we enabled the Loudness Equalization feature in the Realtek High Definition Speakers Control Panel that we got respectable sound. While the bass in Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" wasn't exactly super, it was passable and loud enough to fill a small room. Since the speakers are located on the bottom of the laptop, the audio was severely muted when the system was on our lap.
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