Thread: Acer TravelMate 6291

FOR FREQUENT BUSINESS TRAVELERS, the Acer TravelMate 6291 offers a borderline ultraportable that caters to businesspeople who rarely stay in one place, yet it falls well within the budget constraints of most companies. Still, at this price, you're not going to get the latest Intel com¬ponents, more than 1GB of RAM (we recommend 2GB in order to handle Vista's more demanding features), or great battery life.

What the 6291's plain magnesium-alloy chassis loses in style, it gains in durability, portability, and cost-effectiveness. At 4.5 pounds, it's on the heavy end for an ultraportable. The unit boasts a built-in optical drive, and its 12-inch wide screen allows for a full-size keyboard, like that of the ThinkPad X60.





Acer does a good job of integrating features-the 6291 has three USB ports and a Fire Wire port, plus S-Video-out and VGA-out (rare among ultra port¬abies). One notable omission is integrated WAN, which is understandable given the price, but a cellular modem should at least be an option.

The 6291's performance wouldn't have been so disappointing if Acer hadn't skimped on memory. The I.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor
isn't the latest or greatest, but at least it can handle Vista, unlike the unit's measly 1GB of RAM. That memory deficiency can be crippling for applications such as Adobe Photoshop or even a Web browser. Even worse, the system's battery life is abysmal,last¬ing little more than an hour and a half on our DVD battery run-down test. Despite its performance drawbacks, the Acer TravelMate 6291 is an attractive basic business laptop that gives you tremendous portability and an excellent price.-Cisco Cheng.

Specs:
1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor;
1GB DDR2 SDRAM;
120GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive;
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950,
224MB;
12.l-inch, 1,280-by-800 screen;
4.5-pound system weight (53-pound travel weight);
Microsoft Windows Vista Business.