The good: Integrated Webcam; inexpensive; hardy magnesium-alloy chassis; fingerprint sensor; shock-protected harddisk.

The bad: TPM security chip not included; relatively thick and heavy for a thin-and-light; only one-year warranty.

The bottom line: Acer's foray into the business notebook scene is a full-featured, magnesium alloy-clad number with a low price tag. Though its lack of a TPM security chip and far from svelte figure may drive some off, the TravelMate 6292 is certainly a value-for-money preposition for the junior executive or student.

Read full review of the Acer TravelMate 6292 »

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
Sep 10, 2007

The Acer TravelMate 6291 and 6292 shift away from the Taiwan maker's usual consumer offerings into the business world (though at the time of this review, the TravelMate 6291 had been discontinued). It does not compete in the same category as machines like the Lenovo ThinkPad X61s and HP Compaq 2510p. Nor does it pretend to. With a starting price of S$1,898 for the lower-end configuration, it does battle with larger business workhorses like the Lenovo 3000 N200 and Fujitsu LifeBook A6030 for the junior executive or student. Despite a few minor issues, the TravelMate 6292 offers one of the best values for a thin-and-light laptop in its price range.

Design
Its rather boxy design coupled with a matt black paint job won't win it any aesthetic awards, but corporate users may appreciate that this laptop does not stand out too much in the corporate environment. Though the top cover is molded from magnesium alloy, the bottom of the system is based on plastic which probably contributed to its rather thick (for a 12.1-inch portable) 34.5mm body and 2.1kg weight. Fortunately, it takes up only slightly more desk space than a standard A4-sized sheet of paper.

Instead of placing its dedicated buttons above the keyboard, Acer has decided it will put these on the right instead. Though we expected this decision may result in unintentional shortcut launches, in practice that rarely happened. The five keys activate the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios as well as the Internet browser and email applications. The fifth button can be mapped to your favorite program.

We like the fact that the port placement is well thought-out, with only the VGA and S-video outputs located on the back. The commonly used USB, FireWire and optical drive grace the flanks, while the audio jacks are found on the front. The latter layout prevents cord tangles when you try to listen to music while furiously typing out your proposal or thesis.

Features
Like the larger Lenovo 3000 N200, this TravelMate sports a Webcam above its display. It also has a fingerprint biometric sensor which does away with easy-to-hack passwords in favor of your digits. The ability to log into the system and map passwords to your phalange is a major plus for the absent-minded. After all, you can forget your password but it is a rare feat indeed to misplace a finger. We do lament that the TravelMate 6292 does not incorporate a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip under that hood. This means the security codes are stored on the harddisk instead of the more secure TPM hardware. Hence, we do not recommend keeping exceptionally sensitive data like clinical records or upward evaluations of your boss on this machine. Like most corporate systems, the harddisk is shock-mounted to prevent data corruption in the event of a drop.

Though it may not be a data Alcatraz, this Acer offers a nice range of ports and expansion options for a thin-and-light portable under S$2,000 (US$1,448.33). Three USB and a single mini-FireWire ports should be sufficient to handle most peripherals, though if you are one of those with a shocking number of USB devices, you may appreciate the Fujitsu LifeBook A6030 instead with a whopping five of these inputs. There is also a memory card reader for the SD/MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro and xD-Picture Card formats. We were not too surprised to find that Acer has stuck with the older Type II PC Card slot instead of the newer ExpressCard standard, a good decision considering there are not many addons based on the latter format as yet.

The TravelMate 6292 can handle all current Wi-Fi standards (802.11a/b/g/n) and offers Bluetooth connectivity as well. It has a Gigabit Ethernet port for fast wired access and a modem is also included in the mix. Though some may wonder why the latter still exists in notebooks, considering that dial-up Internet users have dwindled significantly, traveling business users may still need it for receiving faxes or when traveling to third-world nations with low broadband penetration.

The 12.1-inch widescreen display is of the transflective variety, which has excellent performance indoors, but results in distracting reflections under bright conditions. The underlying display drive is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 chip which takes system memory for video rendering. Though in the past such integrated graphics cards performed poorly when it came to games, a recent driver upgrade has made the Intel GMA X3100 a competent option for the casual gamer while still offering power savings and reduced thermal signature over discrete chipsets. VGA and S-video outputs are located on the rear for hooking up to external display systems.

Like most notebook speakers, do not expect stellar sound quality. Fortunately, there are two headphone jacks, one of which is S/PDIF-compliant which allows you to stream digital signals directly to your favorite audio setup.

The TravelMate is easy to work on, thanks to the full-sized keyboard which is comfortable to type on. A touchpad located below allows for cursor control and provides reasonable tactile feedback. The Super Multi DVD drive is able to handle almost all current optical formats save for the newer Blu-ray and HD-DVD standards.

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