Acer TravelMate 2480.....not really worth the bucks
Pros:
Low price,display,decent build quality,light weight
Cons:
Slow processor,old graphics card,completely abysmal battery life.
The Bottom Line:
I would only recommend this laptop if you are in dire need for one and your budget is low. Otherwise,save up and get a better one.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
This year my parents gifted me a laptop. Ouch! Laptops are too expensive to be gifts right? Well thats not the case with the Acer TravelMate 2480. Which,to my surprise,only cost 550 dollars. That is pretty cheap for a laptop. But this laptop is is no wonder,and really is not worth your money.Read on...
Basic Specifications
Processor:Celeron M 1.7GHz
Memory:512MB DDR2
Hard Drive: 80GB
Display:14.1" TFT
Graphics:Intel 950
OS:Windows Vista Home Basic
Intro
Please remember,this is an entry-level laptop and is surely no performance beast. It is OK for everyday use,like watching TV shows and a little internet use.But I feel like this laptop really does not perform well for those bucks you've paid.
Display
The laptop has a 14.1" 1280x800 widescreen display. Now thats pretty impressive,but I doubt anyone will find it handy. The response time of the display is somewhat low,due to which you will notice some ghosting during fast scenes. Otherwise,the screen displays excellent colours and is quite sharp.
Keyboard
The keyboard was pretty comfortable. My hands did not ache even after extensive IM chat,so you won't probably have any problems with it. The mouse was also easy to use and provided no problems in navigation.
Processing
The laptop has a 1.7Ghz CeleronM processor so you probably should not expect anything special. Doing a little bit of Photoshoping was a very very bad experience. Simple filters were taking too much time.
OS
The only positive side I found to this laptop was Windows Vista. But here too,you should not expect much:the laptop has only 512MB RAM which is too insufficient to run the OS. Anyways I was able to boot into the OS and to be honest,I enjoyed using it(the OS i.e.).
Graphics
The laptop comes with the aging Intel 950 graphics chip. I was not expecting any performance wonders from this one but I decided to put it to the test by running Doom 3. Even at a low resolution of 640x480 and all effects off,there were frequent FPS drops. But after all,this is no gaming machine.
HardDrive,card readers,optical drive
The laptop is equipped with a 80GB HDD. The flash-card supports famous card formats so you should not have a problems with this. The laptop also features a DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive. The laptop comes with NTI software for burning CDs. Which I think was pretty sluggish. Anyways,I prefer Nero's solution for burning tasks.The laptop also came bundled with Cyberlink for viewing DVDs.
Battery Life,weight
In the area of battery life,the laptop is at its worst.Even under normal usage I got no more than 1.5 Hours.The laptop is pretty light,weighing just over 5 pounds.
Conclusion
This laptop is not built for serious usage,so don't expect much from it. Still if you only need to everyday tasks,this laptop will not disappoint you. The laptop is also recommended for students who only need to use it for educational purposes
