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Acer Travelmate P645-M
Author(s)
Scrandy (Tested Ubuntu 14.10)
Introduction
The Acer P645 is an excellent, very robust and very portable subnotebook with very good Linux compatibility. Except the 3G-modem, which I cannot test at the moment, the laptop seems to have nearly 100% compatibility. Powersaving can be tuned quite well with tlp and powertop. Most things work out of the box with Kubuntu 14.10.
If you want to buy one: watch out for minimal version differences within the same model number (IPS, HDD, CPU)!
It would be nice, if someone could post, how 3G can be made to work.
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Specifications
For full specifications see the Acer Travelmate P645-M specifications page.
| Name | Acer Travelmate P645-M |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-4200U 1.60 GHz 3 MB or i5-4210U 1.70 GHz 3MB |
| Screen | 35.6 cm ( 14“) Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS or (1366 x 768) NOIPS !!! |
| RAM | 4GB + 1 free Slot (up to 12 GB) |
| HDD | 500 GB HDD or 20GB/120GB/250GB instead of the HDD or in an additional mSata Slot |
| Optical Drive | None |
| Graphics | Intel HD 4400 |
| Network | Wifi abgn, Gigabit Lan, 3G |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | works | |
| Screen | works | 156 DPI needs a lot of work to adapt the applications. Installation and some apps (e.g. Chrome) still look very small. |
| HDD | works | Both HDD and mSata SSD work well |
| Graphics Chip | works | Backlight-keys work also very well |
| VGA Out | Not Tested | |
| HDMI Out | works | Works also with audio output |
| Sound | works | Even volume keys work out of the box |
| Microphone | works | |
| Headphone Port | Not Tested | |
| Microphone-In Port | Not Tested | |
| Wireless | works | |
| 3G | Not Tested | |
| Bluetooth | works | Tested with bluetooth headphones |
| USB | works | |
| Card Reader | works | |
| Webcam | works | |
| Keyboard | works | Fn-Keys work but not the extra 3 keys - wifi however can be switched off by Fn-keys |
| TouchPad | works | Multitouch gestures work out of the box (2 finger scrolling etc) |
| Fingerprint Reader | Not Tested | |
| Suspend/Resume | works |
Notes
UEFI Dualboot needs some work (especially if you are new to UEFI). I made a fresh WIn8.1 installation on the mSata SSD and then installed Ubuntu 14.10 also on the SSD (Both in UEFI Mode). Afterwards I replaced the Windows Boot Manager in the UEFI Setup with Grub2 and it worked.
The high 156 DPI with Full HD needs extensive adaptation of the apps. There are several guides available but some Apps (Chrome etc.) still need fixing. I went with KDE and worked on firefox/thinderbird with the about:config fix. This worked when I uninstalled the oxygen icons for gtk. Some apps still are a bit small, but all relevant ones work well. If you do not like working on this, I suggest not to choose the HD-version. But this is a general problem and will improve over time, especially because of the emerging retina displays.
All Chips (3G, NFC, Wifi, Keyboard-Light, HDD) can be switched off using tlp and self-congigured hotkeys getting power consumption down to 5.8 W (with 40% display light on) from above 10 W. So the battery saving can be tuned quite well and this laptop is ready for ultramobile linux usage.
Summary
The Acer P645-M works really well out of the box with Kubuntu 14.10. I will expand this article, when I have the time to test the rest. (Version tested: NX.V8VEG.025 on Ubuntu 14.10 in Winter 2014)
If you got 3G working please post in the notes section how.
