About laptops (Acer especially)

psdf

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Dec 1, 2007
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For the past few days I've been looking for a new laptop. The best one so for has been an Acer. It has the best specs and so on but it seems a lot of people say they are unreliable... Is this true or just bs and rumours? Are they really THAT bad?

The other one I'm thinking about buying is a HP. The specs are worse (1GB less of mem, smaller HD and slower GPU). Do you think the HP would have better reliability?
 
No, they truly are awful. My boss had one at work. It always crashed (''memory dump''?). He now uses a Dell, like everyone else.
 
Somehow it seems that Acers either work perfectly OR they totally self-destruct and then you are left to fight with the guarantee department...
 
The problem with Acer isn't the hardware itself, it's the bloatware that comes installed from the factory. It's entirely useless and takes hours to remove. Reliability seems fine to me. Take care of it and it will work fine.

Apart from the software, the build quality is down a bit compared to others, the plastics definitely feel lower grade. For instance, even the hinge for the screen feels cheap and sticky.
 
then you are left to fight with the guarantee department...

Theres no fight, they deny all knowledge until you get bored and stop calling. Im using an Acer desktop at work, and to be fair its not bad. But Id never buy one myself.
 
The problem with Acer isn't the hardware itself, it's the bloatware that comes installed from the factory. It's entirely useless and takes hours to remove. Reliability seems fine to me. Take care of it and it will work fine.

Apart from the software, the build quality is down a bit compared to others, the plastics definitely feel lower grade. For instance, even the hinge for the screen feels cheap and sticky.

My thoughts/experience exactly.

We have two Toshiba laptops and those are great. Not much bloatware, well built.
 
Dell blows, I had one. HP seems ok as long as you don't tax it too much, but it does come loaded down with tons of extra software that just hobble the system. Never had an Acer, but I've seen other people go through several while my laptop is still running like a champ.

Fork out a little extra money and buy an Asus, you will thank yourself later.
 
The problem with Acer isn't the hardware itself, it's the bloatware that comes installed from the factory. It's entirely useless and takes hours to remove. Reliability seems fine to me. Take care of it and it will work fine.

Apart from the software, the build quality is down a bit compared to others, the plastics definitely feel lower grade. For instance, even the hinge for the screen feels cheap and sticky.
That's easy to fix with a wipe outta the box, but I'd do that regardless as I hate pre-installed stuff, crap or not.
 
That's easy to fix with a wipe outta the box, but I'd do that regardless as I hate pre-installed stuff, crap or not.

What you're left with, though, is a laptop which is a little bit worse in just about every way. Asus may cost about $150 more, but it's worth it to have a quality product.
 
I try to reinstall the OS as soon as I get a laptop anyway. I'd much rather have all my drivers and software than the bloatware that comes with a new computer.
 
Both Acer and HP suck IMHO........ i stick with Toshiba.
 
I've never owned an Accr, but every one I've ever touched on a store display feels like it's going to fall apart.

I'd stay away from Acer. My boss has only good things to say about Dell.
 
I've seen bad build quality all across most brands.

If you want one that won't fall apart go for a Lenovo.
 
The problem with Acer isn't the hardware itself, it's the bloatware that comes installed from the factory. It's entirely useless and takes hours to remove. Reliability seems fine to me. Take care of it and it will work fine.

I agree with this.

I've got an Acer - a 5920G - and it's great. Well, it was once I removed the crap on it. The gemstone series is nice and shiny - designed by BMW Design apparently (thankfuly no Bangle involved), it feels well-built and it's not let me down yet after 9 months of hard ownership.

It's also survived a number of bangs and scrapes that I reckon would have killed a shoddily-built machine (a foot drop onto a tiled stone floor, for example).
 
Why was it only a foot off the ground?
 
I have a Acer 5920G and i like it alot. I cant find any real fault with it except i was forced to get it with Vista. But Acer is kind enough to provide drivers for Win XP (which was one of the reasons i got it, very few other makers provide that) so i can put XP on it if i want for less bloat and better performance. If you put XP on it, only thing that doesnt work is the webcam, which i never use anyway.

I would have liked a little better battery life, but with a 2.2ghz CPU and a 8600GT videocard, it's bound to be powerhungry.

There may be better laptops out there, but most brands like Lenovo, Dell and HP cost a pretty penny more then same spec Acer. At least where i live.
 
Another happy 5920G owner here. Prety happy with it, 7 months old now and no problems. Had an Aspire before that, died after 3.5 years, not a bad innings considering the heavy use it had (on at least 8-10 hours a day virtually every day, a lot for a laptop).
 
I'd get an Asus, their warranties for notebooks are 2 years and their customer service kicks ass.
 
I got an Acer TravelMate C310 (yeah it's a tablet go away). had it for two years, dropped it about 10 times, a couple of times it was open. Didn't even flinch. The case is metal though not plastic, the only thing that failed is the power supply so I got a replacement for $20 :) Battery life is absolute crap, for battery Dell is the shit. Warranty wasn't a problem for me, never even had to talk to anyone, filled out an online form, they gave me an address to send it too, got the thing back 3-4 days later and they fixed some stuff I didn't report. Pretty easy to work on by yourself as well took me about 10 minutes to take it apart once I got it.

So there you go this is my experience you can take it or leave it :)
 
Nothing wrong with Acer's except their QC isn't great and you may end up with one that has lemon-ish components. A couple of my friends had Acer Travelmates, which were perfectly fine, but my dad had the same thing, and it's MB blew out 6 months into service. Acer was good with their warranty, however, and daddy dearest was able to get it fixed free of charge.

I personally hate anything made by ASUS, so I can't offer any help on that front.

I have an HP Pavillion that I ended up with for free, and, it came with Vista installed, which looked cool and all, but made the thing sluggish as hell. HP doesn't support Windows XP for that particular model, so when I "downgraded" to XP, it was a bitch and a half to get all the drivers for the various components on the machine, however, once I did get all the drivers, the thing works like a bloody charm! The ergonomics of the thing aren't the best, I must warn you, though, because often while typing, your palm will hit the touchpad and you end up typing completely elsewhere.

Good luck with whatever you end up choosing ;)
 
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