Acer 3201 owners, your advice please!

Hi all,
I am homing in on the Acer 3201 as my first(ever) notebook purchase.

First off, I live in NYC, does anyone know if there are demo units or a store selling them in the city? J&R carries Acer but doesn't seem to have this model.

Second, I have not found many reviews of this notebook other than cnet and pcmag. I really enjoy the user reviews and feel they are a much better guide to what joe consumer will actually get.

Anyone here with the Acer 3201 care to give their thoughts? Are you happy with it? Any downsides?

Of particular interest to me is the screen quality, with many notebooks of this class now offering SXGA etc I am wondering how the res is.
Also how is the keyboard to type with. I didn't buy a Sony s260 because the keys were too small for my fingers. I was able to type easily on a Fujitsu 6210 and the Hp DV1000. Anything comparable to those in key size and spacing I should be good.

Thanks for any commments, opinions and tips. If I can't buy it in a store I plan to order from newegg tomorrow!

 

tommy
I live in Hawaii so I wouldn't know of any venders in NYC. Personally, I love my Acer 3201xci. However, there are some drawbacks. Compared to my old Hewlett Packard, the touchpad left and right click buttons are a bit loud for my taste. It's fine in my dorm room but when I get to class, I often found it quite disturbing. The monitor that comes with the Acer looks fine. However, it only handles 1024X728 resolutions, which could be a drawback. Another thing that got me was that it lacked s-video outs. I am one who likes to plug my computer to my 42inch T.V. (solution: I had to buy a vga s-video adapter). I’ve built and owned many desktops in my life. So the 4200 rpm speed of the harddrive got to me. (solution: I bought a 7200rpm HDD)
First and foremost, I’d have to say that this system is the best bang for its buck. The keyboard that comes with this system is a little loud, but fits just right for the contours of my fingers. For video games, it can play counterstrike on the best setting if using another mother. For newer games, I can play doom 3 on 800X 600 smoothly and 1024x728 with a little lag. (I’m hoping more ram will help the game graphics). I truly enjoy the size of this system: its lightweight and the gunmetal silver casing is just seductive.
I hope this helps…

 

I love my 3201XCi. Like bonedages I upgraded to a 7200 rpm hard drive (these things are not standard on hardly any notebooks!) and I put an extra gig of RAM in. I think it's a great notebook, pretty quiet (fan-wise). I have a bluetooth mouse that I use, so I don't use the click pad much. My only real considerations were either this or a PowerBook. But I don't want to switch to MacOS since at my work we use PCs...

I haven't played many games on it. I haven't played computer games for quite a few months now. I might get back to it, but the GPU is pretty good for a notebook, especially one this size!

Keyboard is a decent size. It's a notebook, not a desktop with a standard keyboard we're all used to...

 

It does seem strange that they would put an 9700 gfx card in the thing and then only offer a res of up to 1024x800. Maybe they save money on the LCD which accounts for a $1500 price. I also wish they had a compact flash slot but most notebooks seem to be missing this.

For the price it seems hard to beat this. Anything else in this pricerange of similiar spec seems to be easily 6.5 lbs and up and portability is an important factor for me.

 

Hey morgois, i am also interested in adding a gigabite of ram. Do it make a huge performance gain? How brand ram did you get, where did you buy it, how much did it cost?
Thanks

 

Gaming:

FlatOut: Runs fine, 1024*768 (High detail)

Half Life 2: Started out playing this at 800*600 (Medium/High detail) but went up to 1024*768 (Medium/High detail), runs fine. At start it tells me that the drivers are outdated but ATI doesn´t offer drivers for the mobility series and I havn´t found any drivers on Acers page. A litle problem is that it runs terrebly directly after starting the game, probly becaus of the 4200rpm drive, hoverver, it taces 30 sek or so for that to pass.

CounterStrike Source: HL2 actualy runs much better than this, dont know what Valve did to it but at 800*600 (Medium/High detail) it runs perfectly (witch is important for a Multiplayer game..).

Battlefield 1942 (Modification: SilentHeroes): 1024*768 (High Detail), smooth..

The viewangel on the screen could be better but that isn´t a major problem. Other drawbacks are the lack of SVideo, few USBports and the 4200 rpm HDD.

I also had a hard time finding revews before I bought this notebook so it was a bit of a gamble but I think it turned out fine. It lives up to it´s specs and I am happy with it. I bought it for studies but thought that it could be nice with a Mobility 9700 that could at least handle Battlefield 1942, the great gaming performance was a possitive surprise.

I have compared the unit to a Dell Latitude D505 ant i think that Acers keyboard is better but that dell has a better touchpad (I´m using a mouse most of the time anyway). The SXGA-screent on the Dell was quite nice but things tend to get to small when running at max resolution and due to the nature of TFTscreens 1024*768 will get blurred, thios is a choise that every user vill have to make for himself.

Some other nice things are the pressens of a SDreader and bluetoth.

As said, I´m happy with my unit. And sorry for the fragmented writing, I just wrote what I wos thinking all the time. And the bad spelling is due to that I am from Sweden and language isn´t raly my favorite subject

 

Thanks for the advice all. I have gone ahead and ordered from newegg today. First ever notebook purchase! I got overnight delivery and ordered the Hitachi 7200rpm HD to go with it. Should keep me busy over Thanksgiving weekend!

 

congrats! iv had the 3201XMI for about a month and a half now, and i gotta say its everything i expected it to be. good choice[ ]

 

I bought the KINGMAX 200-Pin 1GB DDR SODIMM PC-2700, Model MSAD42D-KI from newegg (price around $195 - I don't remember). The RAM works great. I didn't do any real benchmarks so I am not sure exactly what sort of increase I got, but I love my notebook now! 7200 rpm drive & 1.25 GB RAM! Awesome notebook. I am very happy with it! I've had it for what, 5 weeks or so? I lose track...

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by bonedages

 

Yes dont forget to buy a sleeve for the old drive and use it as backup storage!
Thats what I did!

 

Well had my notebook for a week now and loving it! The screen is not too bad and its perfectly light and portable. I swiched out the HD for 7200rpm very easily, may add RAM at a later date. Playing Half-Life 2 on it also a breeze.
Anyone looking for a low cost alternative to the Sony s270 pick this up for $1500 you can't be too disappointed.

With regards to the old HD, not really sure what I would do with it if I put it in a case. Could I connect it to my printer to use as a printer server? Would this allow me to print from the notebook over my wireless network?

 

i read that this notebook has a very loud and annoying fan that comes in when the notebook heats up.

any1 else notice this problem?

also the lid and the base don't have a mechanism to hold them together.. and its just held closed by the hindge.. anyone find this a problem?

im deciding between this one and the fujitsu S7000 series.
both are good notebooks, but the fujitsu is magnesium casing and a tad lighter..

im using the notebook at school mostly, and it probably wont see much games. my desktop is a 6yr old computer running a geforce2..
so i MIGHT use my notebook for games in the future and won't have to upgrade my desktop.

any input? thanks
-nathan

 

The fan is not that loud. ALL notebook PCs have fans. If you want pure quiet, get a Mac notebook. I don't know how you can call it a "problem". It's a PC notebook, so it has a fan that will come on.

I don't have a problem with the notebook staying shut, but I store it in a sleeve! Recommend a sleeve anyway.

The S7000 has integrated graphics. If you think you'll play games, there's no question the 3201 is superior.

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by nathan_Chan168

 

Hows the battery life on the 3201?

 

First off to tommynotty you can use the old hard drive as a backup.
Use ghost to clone it on a nightly basis and if anything goes wrong
with the hard drive in the notebook you have a backup!

Second, personally I do not find the fan annoying at all.
If you are easily distracted by little noises anyway
you will be annoyed by any little noise. I get too involved
with what Im doing to notice. I find it to be a nice reassuring
background hum in no way annoying or distracting.

I bought a PC with a supposedly quiet fan and you know what?
I can still hear it! But its probably less loud than a regular
fan. So unless you spend tons of money,
there will always be some little noise!

As for the battery, mine was defective and they are sending me a new one.
So we'll see when I get a new one.
Best to read up on how to fully utilize this type of battery.
Look at it this way, 6 cells is not as good as 8 but better
than 4! With low power usage settings maybe youll get 2 to 3 hours
out of it. If you really need more battery power then buy
a second one!