Acer has been teasing us with an 11.6 inch convertible tablet with a low power Intel CULV processor for months — but it hasn’t been widely available for purchase yet. Now it looks like you can pick up an Acer Aspire 1825PTZ Tablet from Amazon.de in Germany, where it’s in stock and shipping.
The 599 Euro price tag may seem a bit steep at first. That’s about $808 US. But what you get for the money is an 11.6 inch portable laptop with a 1.3GHz dual core Pentium SU4100 processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium. Oh yeah, and you can fold the capacitive multitouch screen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode.
I have high hopes for this notebook. Many of the convertible tablets I’ve tested in the past few months have shipped with Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter Edition — which aren’t really optimized for multitouch gestures. They have also tended to have low power Intel Atom processors, and I’m starting to think that you might need a faster CPU in order to handle Windows in tablet mode, since most of these machines have felt a little sluggish when performing certain actions such as rotating the display. While the Pentium SU4100 isn’t exactly a high performance chip, it is significantly more powerful than an Intel Atom processor.
The Acer Aspire 1825PTZ also has a 6 cell, 5600mAh battery, Bluetooth 2.1, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. The laptop is available in black, blue or red.
There’s still no word on a US release date for the Aspire 1825PTZ.
Update: Johannes from Netbook News.de has posted an unboxing and hands-on video. You can check it out after the break.
via NewGadgets.de
hi, my battery is bad after 4 month i buying from agent. now i want to replace my battery coz the guarrenty is 2 years but the agent say some reason to replace..
my battery is bad and am finding it hard to get a replacement!
Still very happy with my 1825ptz after 11 months but just cracked the screen after dropping it. One of the little rubber spacers that keeps the screen off the keyboard when closed fell out a while back and it looks like it helped the screen crack.
Had to disable touch but still works fine as a laptop. No luck getting a replacement screen here in Australia as it was not released here. Just keep that in mind when taking the plunge with an overseas purchase.
I wonder how this compares with the Lenovo S10-3T and the Viliv S10. The other competition include the Gigabyte and the HP Touchsmart TM2T. I’ll have to check them out.
Yesterday I ordered this one from Amazon.co.uk.
I’m going to install it in the car just like my Asus R2H.
Although there is still one thing I’m looking for: software to adjust the brightness.
That’s why I mailed Acer:
“Hello,
I’m interested in the Acer Timeline 1825PTZ. I want to use it in my car. Therefore it is very useful if the backlight can be changed. This is probably possible through a combination of keys. However, in the car I want to use the device in tablet mode. Is there software available to adjust the backlight?
Thanks!
Rudi Hendrix”
And the unfortunate response was:
“In order to solve your problem please
On all Acer units Pressing the Fn and the up or down arrows will adjust the brightness of the lcd display.
Regards,
Acer Support.
”
Duh! I was looking for a software solution since I am using the device in tablet mode!
If somebody here has some suggestions please let me know.
I’m very eager to play with the capacitive screen. So far I’m only used to a resistive screen.
OK if feel “repentant”, maybe I was a little harsh in my criticism but The The TM2 is often available with coupons that really bring the price down in the range of this unit and of course the WACOM digitizer is as good as it get’s.
My main concern is not price, but weight. I’d have to compare the two side-by-side to make a judgment call. My husband had an older HP tablet running on the AMD platform, and that thing was heavy as a brick, hot as flame, had minuscule battery life, and the screen was terrible. Looks like they’ve improved on three of the four, by switching to the Intel CULV platform and moving from a resistive to capacitive touch screen.
The weight, however, remains the same, in spite of removing the internal optical drive, which the old model had. The Acer is slimmer and a pound lighter, which could make a huge difference when holding it in tablet mode. Even with the price being equal (which is unlikely), I’m not sure if I’d get enough usefulness out of the digitizer to justify the extra weight. To each his/her own, I guess!
On holidays in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and I have seen the 1825PTZ in a couple of shops in Plaza Low Yat (a big computer shopping center). It looks pretty snazzy and the multi touch capacitive screen is really nice to use.
The model has the SU4100 processor (task manager shows 2 cores) with 2gb of ram (upgradable to 4gb) and a 320gb hard drive. It is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and from memory a 1gb video card. It has a small power supply and factory sticker on it says 8+ hours battery life from the 6 cell battery.
Display price is $2299 Malaysian Ringgit (US $714 according to XE), might be able to haggle it down though. Definitely trading in my MSI Wind U100 on this bad boy, well worth the extra $$ from what I have seen so far. Going back for a better look later, will take some pics this time. The wait for a convertible table is over!!!
I purchased mine at the Digital Mall outlet in Section 14, Petaling Jaya. Initially I was looking at the Asus UL30Vt for its long battery life, but the vendor priced it at RM2,799 which was rather steep for me.
He recommended me the Aspire 1825PTZ convertible (RM2,399) and prior to this, I had never seen anything like it. The 11.6″ LCD screen size is the barest minimum my 47-year old eyes can read and I don’t like Atom based netbooks either.
At 1.6kg with a standard 6-cell battery pack, it’s rather on the heavy side for a convertible. I think its touchscreen contributed to its weight as it has to be more robust and reliable, being able to fold to the tablet configuration. A thinner and lighter LCD (like the one used on the Aspire One series) would flex more easily, giving potential long term use problems.
For the Malaysia market, the 1825PTZ comes standard with only 2GB of DDR-3 RAM, vs 3GB for other markets (I upgraded to 4GB at the time of purchase) and a 5400 rpm, 320GB Western Digital Scorpio HDD with 8MB of cache.
Acer’s claims of an 8 hour battery life has to be taken with a grain of salt. In use, I could get about 5-6 hours of battery life on the average, with WiFi turned on and the LCD brightness scaled down and no CPU sapping background services in use. For some reason, Acer’s ePower Management wasn’t installed and I couldn’t get it to install properly for some unknown reasons.
Due to the cramped interior, the SU4100 runs pretty hot for a 10-watt CULV processor, and you can definitely feel it, especially its underside. I think the thermal dissipation design of the 1825PTZ leaves a lot for improvement.
My power savings are achieved via the use of the RMClock utility, which I use it to throttle down the SU4100’s core speed (not clock speed, as the SU4100’s multiplier is fixed at 6.5). I later found out that the Intel GM4500 MHD’s driver has a “hidden” feature to maximize on battery life.
The glossy finish on the LCD’s cover is a fingerprint, scratch and dent magnet. Recently I examined its surface and found odd, very small dents near the center swiveling hinge. I have no idea how it happened, perhaps it was a manufacturing defect.
The keyboard is as good as it gets, with little flex detected but the directional and very small PgUp/PgDn keys are hard to get used to. I think I’ll buy an external keyboard and fold this lappie to its tablet mode. 🙂
All-in-all, the 1825PTZ delivers as promised by Acer but IMO it should be priced slightly lower than RM2,000 (approx USD625).
It’s a good sub-notebook/convertible with its quirks, but I would not buy this Acer Aspire 1825PTZ again if it were stolen or lost.
Hi, I am looking for this model but everywhere in malaysia said out of stock. Do you still have the shop contact? Appreciate if you can share the phone number. Cheers!
Hi, the 1825PTZ is “out of stock” because Acer has already discontinued it. Although I like this small 11.6″ LCD laptop, apparently this model wasn’t selling that well, perhaps due to its high asking price.
In fact the Aspire 1825PTZ is no longer featured on Acer Malaysia’s official website. Your only recourse is to hop from one retail store to another. Good luck!
Dont you think that 1825PTZ looks like the 1820PTZ which was never launched but with the resistive convertible touchscreen that model had, now replaced by a capacitive display….
For the tablet/touch mode I hope that the display/bezel will be not glossy..
The LCD display is glossy as with most modern day laptop LCDs but the thick bezel is matte (non-glossy).
Pretty much a waste of space, various other convertible tablets such as the HP TM2 will blow this piece of junk out of the water with proper versions of Windows 7 + Wacom digitizer ATI graphics for about the same price.
This will probably be $300 dollars cheaper than the TM2. It’s also lighter and does come with Home Preimum. It’s more of a cheap multimedia tablet where as the TM2 is the classical tablet PC that is actually designed for productivity with inking. Too bad it weighs 5 lbs…not gonna be cradling that thing in your arms for long.
What “various other convertible tablets”? So far this is the ONLY convertible NOTEbook (repeat, NOTEbook, not netbook) at this price point. The HP TM2 costs two times as much… which makes this the only real “iPad killer” on the horizon thus far.
I for one, will be eagerly awaiting this “waste of space” “piece of junk”. Netbook size with notebook power, real OS and capacitive multitouch for $500-$600? Good luck finding that in those mythical “various other convertible tablets” you mentioned.