A great little notebook, but with some caveats
Written: Feb 16 '03
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Pros: Great portability, built in WiFi, great battery life
Cons: handwriting not quite there yet, slow processor, fragile latches
The Bottom Line: Go for it if you want portability AND tablet functions, but you can get more for your money if you can spare the tablet functions.
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| theauthorguy's Full Review: Acer TravelMate C100 PC Notebook |
I bought TC100Ti tablet because of it's compact size and because it was the only tablet that came standard with both built in WiFi, a CD-ROM (USB external) and an extra battery.
This is a great little laptop for travel, but buyers should know that it's a very small screen and it's not a powerhouse processor. The 800MHZ P-3 slows down to 400Mhz on battery power to conserve power. While this can be over-ridden, you'll lose a lot of your battery life running it at full power. For general applications, even playing av files, it's fine, but the power user used to a 2 GHZ machine is really going to notice a difference, especially when working with large files.
The handwriting recognition software isn't quite there yet. The tablet function works great, but the handwriting recognition is no quicker than writing graffitti on a PDA, and about as accurate. For jotting down notes, or perhaps for forms and inventory, it works okay, as well as for point and click surfing the net, but for most other apps, you'll find yourself going to the keyboard as quickly as you can.
The keyboard is nice for a machine this small, and it's curved so you're not scrunched up to type, but as with any sub-compact notebook, the weakness is in trying to read small text on the screen. Battery life is good (3-3 1/2 per battery), and the touchpad is a delight to use, although theres a scroll button, I never use it, as the scroll function of the touch pad works great.
The body of the machine is rugged, but the latches and the clips that hold the screen in position are plastic and there are numerous reports of them breaking on the manufacturer's web site. (I'm okay so far, with a month of use and a lot of travel, but I baby the machine having read the reviews. )
Overall, I'd recommend that the prospective buyer really try out MS Tablet Windows XP first hand before springing for the extra $800 that this feature adds to a notebook computer. While the Acer is a great little notebook, I probably could have gotten better performance at the same size and battery life, for quite a bit less money ($800-$1000)if I'd abandoned the tablet feature. If you must have a tablet, this is a good one. If you're willing to go a little bigger and spend a bit more, the Toshiba looks like a good bet as well. (One warning - get some stick 'em velcro for the full sized stylus and stick it to the side of the machine. There is no slot or clip for it and I lost it three times in two hours. But that just might be me.)
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1999.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 11 inches
RAM: 256
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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theauthorguy
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