Acer TravelMate 505T

This notebook could perhaps be termed bulky, when

compared to today’s slim and sleek models. But where it wins over them is undoubtedly in pricing. At a lakh, you would give this a second look.

The model we reviewed came with a 400 MHz mobile Celeron processor and a 4.3 GB HDD. You could also choose one with a 433 MHz or a 466 MHz processor. The system ships with 32 MB of RAM. The “T” in the name stands for Active Matrix version. A Passive Matrix version called the 505P is available at Rs 20,000 less. The notebook has built-in twin speakers, floppy drive, and CD-ROM drive.

There are jacks for external speakers and headphone, and a volume control knob. On the back, you have ports for external monitor, keyboard, and printer. It also includes a telephone cable for the modem and a collar mike. There’s also a serial port, a PC card (CardBus) slot (one type II or one type III), and a USB port. Bundled with the unit was the Millennium edition of Lotus SmartSuite. That probably explained the collar mike, to utilize the speech recognition features of SmartSuite Millennium.

Unlike many of the common notebooks available in the market, the TravelMate gives you easy access to the BIOS, from where you can change the configuration as you would in a normal PC.

Actual viewable area, at slightly over 12” diagonal, is pretty roomy. The display is sharp and supports 24-bit color at a desktop setting of 800x600 pixels. Sound, like in most other notebooks, was tinny particularly at higher volumes, and nothing much to write home about. Under normal workloads, the claimed two-and-a-half hours of battery time are borne out. The keyboard is spacious and well designed. The keys appear a bit tight to touch, but are responsive and smooth to work with. There’s lots of elbowroom and the track pad too has a smooth feel to it. The mouse buttons could have been a bit looser, though.

Some of the preinstalled software adds really nice touches to the notebook. The Acer Time machine, for example lets you take snapshots of the operating system and restore it in case of a problem later. The software can also regularly take snapshots for you.

The only significant crib I have with this piece is 32 MB of RAM. It should have been 64 MB. Otherwise it’s a good notebook, at a very good price.