TravelMate is a series of business-oriented computer notebooks manufactured by Acer. Of the various notebook series Acer has offered, the TravelMate is designated as a lightweight business and professional computer built to withstand day-to-day activities. Travelmate laptops are well received by reviewers, often, however, they are faulted for a lack of visual appeal. The TravelMate name was previously used by Texas Instruments, which sold its mobile computing division to Acer in 1997. The TravelMate mainly competes against computers such as Dell's Latitude, HP's EliteBook and ZBook, Lenovo's ThinkPad and Toshiba's Portégé and Tecra.
Hardware
Depending on the model, the TravelMate series' standard features may include an Ethernet adapter, a Wireless Ethernet adapter, one or more PC Card slots. They also include USB 2.0 ports, an optical drive, and one VGA port. More recent versions feature dual core processors along with a 5-in-1 card reader, a large hard drive and a lot of memory. The more recent models come with better graphics cards. This means more graphics connectivity like S-Video. Some models in the series include a webcam. As with other laptops, earlier models used CFL backlit LCD screens, later transitioning to LED backlit screens.
Software
The operating system included with the Travelmate has, at various times, been Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Several proprietary utilities from Acer are usually provided, which interface with the operating system. These programs include Acer ePower Management for changing the computer's mobile power options, Acer eRecovery Management for flexible data backup, and Acer Launch Manager for configuring the computer's launch keys, which launch user-defined applications. Others utilities manage passwords, file encryption, memory optimization, and network connections. Many models organize these together into an interface called 'Empowering Technology' - with the aim of allow safer, more comfortable and practical use of the notebook.
Acer TravelMate series
TravelMate 2420
The TravelMate 2420 was a Centrino based laptop computer, featuring either a Celeron M or a Pentium M processor at 1.7 GHz, depending on the region where it was to be distributed. As of April 2007, this model was discontinued by Acer Corp in the USA and Mexico. In Latin America it included one 256 MB DDR2SO-DIMM, though in other countries it included one single SO-DIMM module of 512 MB. The Latin American version also included a 40 GB @ 4200 rpm Hard Disk. In other countries the Hard Disk was 80 GB. As it was based on the Centrino platform, it included a 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet adapter, a Wireless Ethernet adapter, a Bluetooth adapter and one PC Card slot. It also included three USB 2.0 ports, one VGA port, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM as optical media drive.
Travelmate 6292
The Travelmate 6292 was manufactured from 2007-2009. It featured an Intel Centrino duo chip setconsisting of 802.11a/g/draft-n, Bluetooth 2.0+edr and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor at 2.0 or 2.2 GHz. The unit came with 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SO-DIMM RAM, a 160GB HDD, and Intel GMA X3100graphics accelerator. The laptop has been praised for its ruggedness, but faulted for its poor visual appeal. This laptop has been a popular choice for making a "Hackintosh" computer, as it had nearly identical hardware to the 2006 clamshell polycarbonate MacBook.
TimelineX series
The TimelineX are ranges of laptops focused on ultra-long battery life on the order of 8 hours. In addition to the Travelmate, 'Timeline' has also been available with Acer Aspire, such as the Aspire TimelineX 3830T, 4830T, and 5830T available in 2011.
