TravelMate is a line of business-oriented
laptop computers
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
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
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
, which sold its mobile computing division to Acer in 1997. The TravelMate mainly competes against business computers such as
Dell
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
's
Latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...
,
HP's
EliteBook
HP EliteBook is a line of business-oriented high-end notebooks and mobile workstations made by Hewlett-Packard (HP Inc.). The EliteBook series, which fits above the lower-end HP ProBook, ProBook series, was introduced in August 2008 as a replace ...
and
ProBook,
Lenovo
Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...
's
ThinkPad
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablet computers, tablets designed, developed and marketed by Lenovo, and formerly by IBM until 2005, when IBM's Personal computer, PC business was acquired by Lenovo. ThinkPads have ...
and
Toshiba
, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
's
Portégé.
Overview
Hardware
Depending on the model, the TravelMate series' standard features may include a full specter of actual ports, include an Ethernet adapter, and one or more
PC Card
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...
slots. They may also include a docking port, an optical drive, and one
VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
port. The version with soldered memory is uncommon. The higher-end models come with professional graphics cards. The
TPM chip is also a common option.
As with other laptops, earlier models used CFL backlit LCD screens, later transitioning to LED backlit screens. The classic models may have a pointing stick option, a docking port, fingerprint reader, and other high-end business features. The curved keyboard layout was only a TravelMate family feature.
Software
The operating system included with the Travelmate has, at various times, been
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...
,
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
,
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
,
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
,
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
,
Windows 8.1
Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...
and
Windows 10
Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...
. 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 allowing safer, more comfortable, and practical use of the notebook.
History
Texas Instruments TravelMate models
TravelMate 3000 (1991)
TravelMate 4000m (1995)
Acer models
TravelMate series
TravelMate 2420
The TravelMate 2420 was a
Centrino
Centrino is a brand name of Intel Corporation which represents its Wi-Fi and WiMAX wireless computer networking adapters. Previously the same brand name was used by the company as a platform-marketing initiative. The change of the meaning of the ...
based
laptop
A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...
computer, featuring either a
Celeron M
Celeron is Intel's brand name for low-end IA-32 and x86-64 computer microprocessor models targeted at low-cost personal computers.
Celeron processors are compatible with IA-32 software. They typically offer less performance per clock speed ...
or a
Pentium M
The Pentium M is a family of mobile 32-bit single-core x86 microprocessors (with the modified Intel P6 microarchitecture) introduced in March 2003 and forming a part of the Intel Carmel notebook platform under the then new Centrino brand. The '' ...
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
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
it included one 256 MB
DDR2 SO-DIMM
A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, ...
, 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
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...
. 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
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
adapter, a
wireless ethernet
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
adapter, a
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
adapter and one
PC Card
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...
slot. It also included three USB 2.0 ports, one
VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
port, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM as optical media drive.
TravelMate 5760
The TravelMate 5760 was manufactured in 2011, gaining popularity in 2012. It featured the
Intel Core i3-2310M dual-core processor at 2.10 GHz. The device came with a hard drive of 250 GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 640 GB or 750 GB and 4 GB 1066 MHz of
DDR3 SDRAM
Double Data Rate 3 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR3 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface, and has been in use since 2007. It is the higher-speed ...
. It was however, able to support up to 8 GB of RAM. It came with the
Windows 7 Professional
Windows 7, a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2009. Only Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate were widely available at retailers. The other editions ...
operating system and also featured an HDMI port, three USB 2.0 ports, one
VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
port, and one
RJ-45
A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized telecommunication network interface for connecting voice and data equipment to a service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance carrier. Registration interfaces were first defined in t ...
ethernet port.
Travelmate 6292
The Travelmate 6292 was manufactured from 2007-2009. It featured an Intel Centrino duo chip set consisting 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 X3100 graphics 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.
Travelmate P6
Released in 2020 model has a 14" screen and was equipped with 8 ports: 2 USB, 1 USB-C port, HDMI, charging port, 3.5 audio jack, SD reader and Ethernet. This model was described as a solid business machine, but keyboard typing was less comfortable that a typing on a
ThinkPad X1
The ThinkPad X1 series is a line of high-end ThinkPad laptops and tablets produced by Lenovo.
The current model list contains six lines of machines:
* X1 Carbon - mainstream premium 14-inch model
* X1 Yoga - the convertible 14-inch version
* ...
keyboard.
TravelMate 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
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events.
Timelines can use any suitable scale representi ...
' has also been available with Acer Aspire.
* Acer TravelMate 8172
* Acer TravelMate 8371
* Acer TravelMate 8331
* Acer TravelMate 8372
* Acer TravelMate 8471
* Acer TravelMate 8431
* Acer TravelMate 8472
* Acer TravelMate 8473
* Acer TravelMate 8481
* Acer TravelMate 8552
* Acer TravelMate 8571
* Acer TravelMate 8531
* Acer TravelMate 8572
TravelMate Spin B1
TravelMate Spin B3
References
External links
* of Acer TravelMate Notebooks
{{Acer Inc.
TravelMate
TravelMate is a line of business-oriented laptop computers 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 activ ...
Consumer electronics brands
Computer-related introductions in 1990
Products introduced in 1990
Business laptops