Design
The TravelMate C202TMi is a solid piece of hardware. It comes with two batteries, and when fitted with the smaller and lighter 3-cell unit plus an optical drive it weighs in at 2.35kg. With the larger 6-cell battery fitted the weight rises to 2.5kg.
For a Tablet PC with a 12.1in. screen, the TravelMate C202TMi is bulkier than you might expect, measuring 31.5cm by 23.8cm by 3.5cm. These dimensions make the system a little awkward to hold in the crook of an arm and use in tablet mode for any length of time.
The TravelMate C202TMi's screen conversion method is unique. With the display in tablet mode, lain flat on the keyboard, you push the 'open' latch and, with minimal encouragement, the screen slides upwards and away from you, rolling along tracks on the left and right edges of the system and revealing the keyboard. The screen comes to a halt at an angle of about 125 degrees; to lay it flat again, you give a gentle pull at both sides, and it glides downwards and locks into position.
The system works smoothly and seems robust. Because you can’t have the screen facing inwards, as on a conventional convertible Tablet PC, Acer provides a clip-on screen protector for use when the TravelMate C202TMi is in transit. Unfortunately we weren’t given one of these as part of our review package so can’t comment on its effectiveness.
For the screen mechanism to uncover the whole of the keyboard, the keyboard needs to be at the very front of the system, leaving no space for a wrist rest. We generally find wrist rests are vital to notebook use, but others may not miss this feature. The keyboard itself is very tactile, although heavy-handed tappers might find it somewhat squidgy. The function key row accommodates half-sized keys. There is no touchpad: instead, there's a pointing stick between the G H and B keys, with left and right mouse buttons located beneath the keyboard.
Features
The TravelMate C202TMi is powered by an Intel Pentium M 740 processor running at 1.7GHz. Graphics are provided by a dedicated module in the shape of Nvidia's GeForce Go 6200 with 64MB of VRAM. There is 512MB of DDR2 RAM, expandable to 2GB. Our review unit was supplied with a 60GB hard drive, which is not a configuration option on Acer's Web site -- as standard, an 80GB drive is installed.
Wireless networking is handled by Intel’s PRO/Wireless 2200BG module, which supports 11Mbps 802.11b and 54Mbps 802.11g, while wired Ethernet connections are catered for by Broadcom’s NetLink Gigabit Ethernet adapter. Bluetooth is also included.
As already noted, the TravelMate C202TMi is supplied with two batteries – 3-cell and 6-cell. These are easily fitted and are both the same size, so that they fit flush to the edge of the system.
The hardware design is optimised for right-handed users. With the TravelMate C202TMi in notebook mode, the right edge of the screen houses the on-off switch, a button that acts as a shortcut to the Task Manager, a screen orientation toggle, access to Tablet and Pen Settings and an Esc button. To the right of the keyboard is a column of four buttons, three of which give quick access to email, the Web and an Acer software utility called Empowering Technology (of which more shortly). The fourth button simply lets you configure the other three.
There is a small scroll wheel on the bottom right-hand corner of the keyboard area. This is ideal for moving through long documents or Web pages when working in either Tablet PC or notebook mode. Both the scroll wheel and the left and right mouse keys are accessible in Tablet PC mode because the screen section is slightly smaller than the base unit; when the screen is lain flush, around 25mm of the base section remains exposed.
On the left edge of the system is a slot-loading DVD-RW/CD-RW drive, a PC Card slot and a 4-in-1 card reader that accepts SD, MMC, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro cards; the left edge also houses the RJ-45 Ethernet and RJ-11 modem jacks.
The right edge is home to three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA connector, a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port plus headphone and microphone jacks. At the back there's a connector for Acer’s ezDock, an optional extra that provides a range of additional ports and connectors. The front edge houses buttons for turning on and off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections, as well as an infrared port.
The digitiser pen for the active TFT touch-screen lives in a slot in the base section of the TravelMate C202TMi. Acer has built fingerprint recognition into this Tablet PC: the reader sits near the screen so that you can log in when working in Tablet PC mode.
You get a lot of software with the TravelMate C202TMi, much of it clustered in the Empowering Technology window mentioned earlier: Acer eData Security Management (file encryption); Acer eLock Management (locking for all removable data devices attached to the notebook); Acer ePerformance Management (performance monitoring and system tweaking); Acer eRecovery Management (system recovery and backup); Acer eSettings Management (tweaking various security and system settings, including boot options and BIOS settings); Acer ePower Management (sophisticated power scheme management) and Acer ePresentation Management (rapid screen resolution adjustment).
Performance & battery life
As far as performance is concerned, the 1.7GHz Pentium M-powered TravelMate C202TMi with 512MB of RAM acquits itself well. The application-based MobileMark 2002 benchmark reports a Productivity score of 224, which is among the fastest we've tested. The C202TMi's discrete graphics module helps here, and if you need to run more demanding applications than those in MobileMark 2002, a RAM upgrade to 1GB should do the trick.
Battery life is more of a worry. With the 3-cell battery fitted, the system managed just 92 minutes under MobileMark 2002's battery rundown test. Unfortunately, the benchmark repeatedly failed when we switched to the 6-cell battery, but it's clear that you're going to need to carry both units if you want a decent spell of mains-free operation. Some users may need to buy an optional extra 6-cell battery as well.
Not everyone will like the mechanics of this Tablet PC. We found that the absence of a wrist rest made for uncomfortable typing, and might miss the ability to fold the screen away completely when the system is not in use. On the other hand, Acer’s added software features are functional and even where they duplicate services that are already part of Windows, they often deliver them in a more user-friendly way. Finally, if data and system security is a key consideration, then the TravelMate C202TMi's fingerprint recognition and other security systems should appeal.
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