Great hardware, software needs tweaking
Written: Oct 18 '00 (Updated Dec 09 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Tons of storage, CD-RW, super light, great value
Cons: Over-aggressive power saving, glitches in supplied software
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| MaxWebster's Full Review: Acer TravelMate TM602TER |
I started out intending to buy a desktop, but all that changed when I saw the specs on the Travelmate 602TER. My must-haves were:
* Built in 10/100 ethernet.
* CD-RW.
* 128 MB RAM.
* USB.
* Reasonable size of hard drive.
* Decent screen.
* Decent processor.
The 602TER comes with all that, plus very light weight, plus great price. Every other laptop I found was lacking in one area or another.
The unit is plenty small, but with a roomy keyboard. Through combinations with the FN key, you can turn on a numeric keypad (hijacking some of the other keys), and various audio, video, and power saver functions. The only bad points with the keyboard are the need for FN combinations for Home and End, and the arrangement of Page Up / Page Down that makes it easy to hit the cursor keys instead.
The keyboard is complemented by a versatile touchpad. I've always been a big touchpad skeptic, but this one has plenty of responsiveness and options. You can scroll windows by dragging along the edge of the pad, page up and down by tapping in the corners, and assign 3 more functions to the rocker switch below the pad. I find it very convenient to page or scroll through web pages and minimize or maximize them as needed, all by using the touchpad without moving the mouse.
The screen is nice and sharp, and is viewable from the side. The worst viewing position is front-on with the screen tilted too much or too little, so I find I have to adjust the tilt to avoid a washed-out look.
The port availability is good, with 2 USB ports and a port replicator for serial and parallel. There is also a PS/2 port for mouse or keyboard, and of course video out for an external monitor. On the networking side, you get both 10/100 ethernet and a 56K internal modem (which I haven't tried yet to see if it's a winmodem). Network performance is snappy with my cable modem. Parallel and serial worked fine for printing and hotsynching, but I haven't been able to get my Nomad Classic to recognize its cradle on the parallel port yet (but that seems to be a common problem with the Nomad). No floppy is included, so if you don't get the optional USB floppy, you'll want to make sure you have a reliable network connection to transfer files by ftp, or another CD-R/CD-RW to swap files on CD.
The CD-RW drive comes with Adaptec CD Creator for copying or creating CDs, and DirectCD to make a CD-R or CD-RW writable like a regular disk drive. This is the same combo that came with my HP CD-R unit, so I'm pleased to have the same on the laptop. It would be nice to have some MP3 decoder software bundled too.
IBM's ViaVoice and a headset microphone come bundled. I'm not sure this adds much value, but the price is still right so no bother.
It seems like a given these days that any good deal comes with a catch. With the 602TER, the catch is that you will probably want to fiddle with and add to the pre-installed software. It's true that many background applications run by default in the system tray, but you can turn them off by right-clicking on the systray icons or through the control panel. I find it helpful to see them in the beginning so I can choose which to get rid of. The software bundle is Microsoft Works, which personally I've been OK with ever since Win 3.1, but of course you'll want to get the real MS Word separately. The virus software is something called PC-cillin, which hasn't intruded on me yet but I'll prefer to get something a bit more well known instead.
What confused me the most over the first couple of days was all the choices for power management. There is a "standby" mode, a "sleep" mode, and a "hibernate" mode. It's not clear to me what the difference is, other than that the hibernate mode is bad news and I'd recommend disabling it through the Sleep Manager. It doesn't seem to be compatible with Easy CD Creator, because several times the system entered hibernate mode and when it came back, Easy CD hung the system. Unlike typical power saving modes that stop when you "hit any key", hibernate mode requires you to hit the power switch. I spent a long time fiddling with the power switch and had several boots where CHKDSK ran because the system wasn't shut down properly. I think the problems arise because hibernate mode saves the entire contents of RAM to the hard drive, so it takes time to switch in and out, all the while you have no signal what's happening and might turn off the system in the middle. As the system hung, I realized that some systems are software-controlled, so I couldn't eject the CD or force the monitor to come on. (Later I found the pinhole for manually ejecting the CD.) Since turning off hibernate mode, I've also had occasional problems where I turn off the screen and leave the machine running overnight, then the screen refuses to turn on the next morning and I have to reboot.
The multiple options for power management are typical of the many options with the system. There are 3 ways to do most keyboard functions like scrolling and page up/down. Most of the pre-installed background apps can be controlled from the systray, the control panel, and a wizard interface. Expect to spend a few days poking around to see all the things you can do.
The built-in speakers are noticeably tinny -- you'll want to stick with headphones or external speakers for serious music listening -- but that's no big surprise with a laptop.
But any negatives that I'm pointing out are minor quibbles given the raw power, storage, and connectivity that come built in. It's a joy to burn half a dozen CDs, and leave the disk images on the hard drive in case I want to make another copy later. I feel like I get better network speed and processing responsiveness than with any corporate-issue desktop around.
Summary: Get this computer for its hardware features. Disable its most aggressive power saving mode, turn off any systray programs you don't need, customize the touchpad features to simplify web browsing, and be sure to bring over the most useful software from your old system.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 501-600
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 9-12
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Epinions.com ID:
MaxWebster
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Member: John Russell
Location: Berkeley, CA
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 1 member
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