In Figure 3, you have an overall look at the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3830T-6417 with its lid closed. Its metallic blue finishing is really beautiful. After a while, you will see some fingerprints on it, but it is not as bad as what happens with laptops with glossy black finishing. Closed, the laptop measures 1.15 x 12.64 x 9 inches (29.2 x 321 x 228.6 mm) (H x W x D) and weighs 4.1 lbs (1.85 kg).

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Figure 3: Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3830T-6417

On the front part of the laptop, there is a button with a battery symbol on it. When pressed, an LED lights up indicating the battery status. When the laptop is connected to the wall, blue means the battery is fully charged, while orange indicates the battery is charging. When the laptop is running on batteries, blue indicates that there is less than 30% charge remaining, orange means there is between 30% and 10% charge remaining, and red means that there is less than 10% charge left. This button also works when the computer is turned off.

This is a major change from the previous Aspire models, where this LED is really big and is on all the time while the computer is connected to the wall. This is definitely a nice change – try to sleep in the same room with a laptop that emits a bright light even when it is turned off.

There is also a memory card reader, which supports the Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), and xD formats.

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Figure 4: Front panel

On the left side of the laptop we have the power supply connector, VGA output, HDMI output, one USB 2.0 port, and one USB 3.0 port.

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Figure 5: Left panel

On the right side of the laptop we have the audio jacks (with the headphones jack supporting SPDIF), one USB 2.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, and a place for installing an anti-theft device from Kensington.

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Figure 6: Right panel