Acer Laptops

[Shangri-laschild]

Has anyone heard anything about Acer Laptops? I know someone who is debating getting one. He mostly just wants it for the internet and for at his house. The online reviews didn't seem to be too awesome but I wasn't sure if for the kind of usage that he's looking at it would be fine. I don't know which specific model he was looking at, just that it was under $400 (before tax).

[Treasure]

i have an Acer Netbook, and i love it. i mainly use for surfing the interwebs and doing things in word or excel

its so lightweight, easy to take anywhere, standard battery life.


the NETbook is only about 10" wide, which makes for a cramped keyboard, and the "finger mouse" is SUPER sensitive, if he's a gamer he'll probably want to seriously consider an external mouse

I love looking up recipes, and taking the computer into the kitchen while i cook.

[technical.angel]

For general usage, there should be no reason a person should really worry about which brand to get. The important thing is to see what people say about their support.

Of course, also what people say about the specific model.

As long as the computer is properly specced, the brand doesn't matter a great deal to the basic user.

[Aethian]

Becareful when getting a netbook. When I found mine almost all of them had Win7 STARTER. I managed with Tech Angel's and RD's help to find one with WinXP.

[technical.angel]

Thanks, Bunny.

Yes, if it IS a netbook, and at that price it most likely is, make sure it is not running Win 7 Starter. Win 7 Starter = BAD BAD Mojo.

[Shangri-laschild]

Also, if he is debating maybe getting a desktop instead, does anyone have any suggestions on inexpensive desktops? I've only ever built mine and even then someone else picked the parts so I'm not very good with specs or knowing about off the rack computers. He found some Compaq Pressarios online. 2gm memory, AMD Athlon II Processor, 500Gb HD. One had a Radeon graphics card and the other has a NVIDIA. Both computers come with a 20 inch monitor and are about $400.

[MadMike]

I bought my son an Acer laptop roughly six years ago. That thing gave us nothing but trouble almost from day number one. It had this nasty habit of just shutting off for no reason. We got a huge run-around from Acer, and also from Circuit City (may they rot in hell), despite the extended warranty we bought, and the salesman's assurance that, "If anything goes wrong, just bring it back. No questions asked."

I will never buy another Acer as long as I live. And even before Circuit City went under, I never shopped there again.

[telecom_goddess]

I personally just bought a toshiba sattelite and love it. So far so good..and not too expensive either, about 500 bucks.

[Mel]

My husband bought an Acer Netbook last Spring. A couple of months in, the thing died. As in no power at all. We tried removing the battery and just plugging it in, but it still wouldn't start.

He called their support line and they just said to send it in and they'll look at it. We Fed-Exed it and received it back LESS than a week later, with a new Motherboard. We were impressed to say the least. It's been working perfectly ever since. Of course, he removed the Windows 7 Starter OS it came with and installed Fedora Linux to it, so of course it works better now.

[MadMike]

We Fed-Exed it and received it back LESS than a week later, with a new Motherboard.

I really thought you were going to say you received it back and nothing was done with it. That's what happened with ours. They'd glance at it for a nanosecond, decide they couldn't recreate the problem, and send it back. Worse yet, they didn't use Fedex, UPS, or even USPS would have been fine. They used DHL, which is another company that I refuse to do business with if I can possibly help it. Seems that their drivers didn't know what the huge, bright pink sticker that said "Deliver after 16:00" meant, and kept trying to deliver it when everyone was at work.

[ArcticChicken]

I've had mine for a couple of years and have never had any trouble.