Acer 3820TG North America Purchase Options

Looks like the best deal now is the PChome i3-350M, 5650, 4gig, 500 gig, priced nightly sale at $874 (US). Reviews show that for gaming, the i3-350 is not far off from the I7, and for the price, the I3 is great for gaming. If it overclocks at all, then even better.

Besides gaming, even the lowly i3-350 seems like overkill for the vast majoity of windows users. Heck, my current Pentium M 1.8GHz single core still runs most things great (Insipron 17"). Gaming is where the old mr9700 in current laptop fails. Just built a dirt cheap itx rig with a Sempron 140 single core, and even that plays Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at acceptable framerates. Point is, CPU seems to be a big focus, but I see it as no big deal, and one of the last items you need to worry about.

I started to look at the lower cost $844(US) models that came with the 5650, such as i3-330 and 2 gig ram, as memory only costs about $20 a gig, so $40 to move it up to 4 gig yourself. But the night special for $30 more adds the extra 2 gig, and bumps the CPU up to the i3-350.

After the i3-350, next step up is the $970(US) I5-450 with otherwise exact same configuration. $100 more for the i5-450 than the i3-350? Please explain why I might want to or need to go that route?

Thanks.

 

Post removed.

 

Because the I3 throttles at 87C-90C. The I3 has an IGPU thermal bridge limitation of 85C and a Max temp of 90C, it is severely thermally limited and temds to throttle, especially in demanding games.

On the other hand, the I5 has a max temp of 105C. It does not throttle and rarely exceeds temps in the low 90C range.

The difference, especially in gaming is profound. I would not recommend the I3 and IMO, the I5 is well worth the extra $100.

The most work on identifying the throttling issue and the I3 has been accomlished by the US 4820TG owners. http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/499204-acer-aspire-timelinex-4820tg-owners-lounge-68.html My hat is off to them.

Bronsky

 

Seeing a few posts mention those temps and thought that was insane, and must be a rare fluke. But after a quick look some more in the Owners Lounge, I see that those temps are not unusual. Even with stock clocked CPU and video? And that 90C+ is not a sign of something wrong?

What happened to the days when overclocking caused temps to reach upper 70C in a poorly built system? Now, upper 80C+ when stock clocked is considered fine..? Guess I've been messing with AMD too long, which would croak long before 80's were hit. Even a heat monster like Phenom X4 125w was only rated for temps in the 60'c.

 

we are not talking about OCing, we are talking about gaming. you wont raise the temps to 90C+ with just OC .... it is when you are playing MW2, SC2 for example that temperature will go above 90 as with ALL laptops. and this is where the i3 will really limit your performance compared to the i5

 

Got it.

So this thing puts out close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit when doing many games. Yet it still stays cool according to reviews????

EDIT: Looking in other sections now. Started with m11X and while it is not in the same league, temps in the 60's under extreme load like the max, and that's with a smaller case and only one fan. Will look for more comparable..

In the 4820TG owners lounge I see a lot of discussion, but I thought that unit had known poor cooling issues (single fan), and that the 3820TG had improved cooling (dual fans) that corrected those overheating troubles? Is that wrong, and the 3820TG is just like the 4820TG and will have cooling issues? Sure sounds like it here.

Not trying to be a pain, but the info seems to contradict itself every time I turn around.

 

Don't know where you're getting 200F/90C from. I get about max 80C CPU and 75C GPU.

To compare things... my XPS M1730 goes up to 72C CPU and 85C GPU. I think the new Core i's are designed to go up to those temps without any problems vs. the Core 2 Duos. The GPU, as you can see, cools better in the 3820TG.

Also, the notebook itself has very good cooling and pushes out a lot of heat.

 

I see the Sony's also can heat up into the upper 90C's range

 

Also, the M11x CPU is a ULV so it probably runs cooler, not a fair comparison.

 

After reading that section some, it appears that of the 600+ posts, one user has an issue in one game, and another has the issue in a few games. That is it. Also noteworthy is the fact that it is the 4820TG with one cooling fan, not the 3820TG discussed here with 2 cooling fans. I did not read all the posts to see if methods were used to attempt to correct by applying better HS compound, etc.

Sorry, but based on the posts in that section about that other model, I do not think it suggests that the I3-350 would have throttling issues in the 3820TG.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/6588102-post670.html

I also understand that if someone feels the need to upgrade the CPU themselves from an i5 to an i7, then of course to them, the i3 would seem like a turtle and be totally unacceptable for the $100 difference between an i3 and an i5..

Bronsky, I appreciate reading all the advanced things you are doing with these, and I have learned a lot from your posts. But I am speaking from the other side, the lowest end that cheap people could get away with. Maybe even..... get the 2 gig version for now, then update later when memory prices drop back down to the $10 a gig zone!!!!! Nah, because the deal for $30 more includes 2extra gig AND upgrades CPU from i3-330 to i3-350, that is too good to pass up even for cheap like me.

 

Greetings from China! Just got my 3820. Installed Win7 Pro (English) and am now working on installing programs.
I got:
English BIOS
English Keyboard (not a single Chinese character)

 

Congrats! May I ask how much did you buy it for and what are the specs?

 

Great answer!

I'm going to quote it word for word should the question come up elsewhere (regarding i3 vs i5).

 

i5-450M, 2GB / 320GB / 5400RPM, the rest you know
Silver lid
6000 RMB (890 USD)

 

where can you get one without chinese characters? seems like pchome only sells one with chinese char

 

I have the i3 350M and haven't had any problems with it so far. I posted some temperatures a while back too and they seemed fine. In a room with ambient temps of 20c running Prime95 constantly I hit a max of 74c but it stabilised at 70c.

Also as an unofficial test (not sure if this was safe and not recommended) I placed a fan heater blowing directly the laptop while running Prime95 at the same time attempting to simulate summer conditions . Even then temperatures only hit about 89c max and it hovered about 84c after about half an hour.

 

I see you are from NZ, where did you buy the 3820tg? websites? price? available models?

 

Nee hao ma?

Man goes to China. Buys a laptop there that only has English letters on the keyboard.

We stay put in the USA. Buy laptops that have both English and Chinese letters on the keyboard.

That's ironic, don't you think.

Either that or someone in Acer's distribution department needs to be fired fast!

 

anyone have an envy laptop in this thread?

i am finding the screen a bit tinted yellowish, like the whites aren't whites,

and now i can't remember how the staples model i had looked like but this system from taiwan seems dimmer at high compared to the staples one


but it could be that i am used to the hp envy and the scrren is fabulous on it

 

thats probably the case, since i always look at my 23inch desktop 1080p monitor, i cant bear to look @ the screen too. yes it does seem sorta yellowish at first

 

So,

I have been researching this grainey effect on these displays, and it's a true cause and it really exist, some people might thing its normal but really its not.

some threads...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell/166574-how-tell-if-you-have-auo-lcd-grainy-inspiron-vostro.html

even if u go to google and type in AUO grainy it shows up, and dell of all companies is aware or was aware of the issue.

left is the bad one, right is the okay one..
http://s.lowyat.net/uploads//attach-10/post-1210-1223889665.jpg


here is another thread again showing pictures ..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/2475965-post7.html

and from this

it seems like dell had major complaints with it

Google


i have already emailed pchome about returns, idont mind sending it back will use my business shipping .

 

According to one of the links that you found for us, the problem of graininess is more prevalent in higher resolution screens than lower ones, as well as larger screens than smaller ones.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...o-lcd-grainy-inspiron-vostro.html#post2439264

So, with the 3820TG's low res, small screen, it sounds like we'll be safe!

By the way, like my new signature?

 

the inspiron and vostro from what i know didnt offer high res therefore it's not safe

even essense has seen the grainyness a few post back

and also in the 4820tg

others have noted it

 

My screen no longer shows white; it's a blue tint now LOL ~~

 

what display do you guys have? i have the auo322c and taking a closer look at it, it seriously is pretty bad.....

 

Really? You have the staples canada version correct? I was going to go purchase it tomorrow but you've scared me off now

 

I suppose this means you'll be leaving us now and joining the Sony Vaio Z forums? Have fun!

 

Maybe i'm just too lazy to adjust the display settings? You have 14days to refund the laptop anyway; take advantage of the $699 price~

By far the biggest problem of this laptop is its touch pad.
I can't move the mouse for 1/2seconds after I press something on the keyboard except alt/ctrl/windows

 

yep thats the one.

for me right now i have opened up a return thing with pchome

i believe with my work it might cost me 59US express to ship it back

not a huge huge problem, and so far their automated rma system has quoted me the whole purchase amount for return which includeds the shipping.

 

One a side note..

i wonder if we can install another 13.3 inch display in this notebook?

same resolution but from another maker?

 

Use the "calibrate display color", turn down the gamma a bit, and adjust the RGB slider. I turned down the green a bit and the red a bit more. If you have a yellow tint, I'm guessing turning down green and blue is the way to go.

 

Yeah I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a try at that price.

Just curious though, are you planning to return your 3820tg? Or are you more or less satisfied with it despite the display/touchpad problems?

 

am i the only one that actually likes the touch pad a lot!

 

If you read into those threads, there are trade-offs for each panel manufacturer, and even those trade-offs are inconsistent between the manufacturers. Some of them who compared an AUO panel to a Samsung panel found that their AUO was brighter and had better viewing angles while their Samsung panel had a more yellowish tint in comparison (probably similar to what you are seeing comparing your AUO to the ENVY screen). Even the thread that had AUO representing graininess in the title seemed to become a thread about comparing Samsung and LG screens.

Looking online, you can find cases of graininess for pretty much every manufacturer (in these forums and beyond). In fact, the picture you linked with the left bad and right good comparison shows two screens that aren't even manufactured by AU Optronics (AUO). The left screen is manufactured by Samsung (SEC) and the right one by LG Philips (LPL). You can also find cases for every manufacturer where people report no graininess. I haven't opened my Acer yet, but my old 5-year old laptop has a matte AUO display that I don't think I see any graininess in. I can somewhat see it in your picture and it's a little more evident in the Samsung panel that you used as an example, so hopefully I'll be able to chime in if I notice it on my Acer soon enough.

I do find it perfectly normal that you would find the screen inferior to the one on the ENVY. The ENVY series is marketed as including an above average screen, and HP will charge you $200 more for it at least on the ENVY 14 as of the base configuration change recently. What I'd like to see if you can before you get rid of your Acer is to take a side-by-side picture comparison of your ENVY to the Acer with the same background and maximum brightness on both. I have no doubts in my mind that the HP will look better but I want to see how much better.

I actually had an ENVY 14 lined up as my next laptop but my unit came with a stuck pixel (which I couldn't get out as hard as I tried), so I ended up RMA'ing it. Another reason why I didn't bother exchanging is because the headphone jacks were too noisy/hissy for my low impedance headphones (yes, somewhat picky, but I'm taking a gamble that Acer will do a little better in this regard). Furthermore, the battery life was less than I was expecting (ordered relatively early), and the fact that the GPU in the ENVY was lower-clocked just caused me to avoid HP this time.

But really, the ENVY 14 had a lot of things going for it, including the nice screen (which I didn't really get to enjoy because the stuck red pixel kept bothering me ) and construction, backlit keyboard, thermal management, etc. I just became too picky over little things that added up and caused me to look elsewhere.

I'm hoping the graininess issue in these AUO displays is as inconsistent as it is in all panel manufacturers and that perhaps there are actual batches of AUO displays out there that don't exhibit this behavior (maybe Bronsky's?).

 

Here's an excerpt from the 3820T/3820TG Series Service Guide under "LCD Panel" for the "Hardware Specifications and Configurations":

I think you can find some of these panels to purchase online using Google. There's a section in the service guide for "LCD Module Disassembly Process" so I would expect that it is indeed possible to change out the LCD panel.

 

So where's your in depth impressions of your new laptop??

 

Yes I want a 5650 one =], My eyes are getting used to the screen tho but mayb it's cuz i was playing with this laptop all night and didn't get enough sleep.

 

No wonder you're having problems with the trackpad. You're not supposed to do that.

It would be like me playing BFBC2 with the keyboard and trackpad.

 

essence - what happens is the pointer stops moving!

 

ya ya but it's not just in games.. let's say i'm editing this sentence and I move my pointer in the middle of the sentence, add a word and when I want to move the pointer again, I need to wait a second or two before it moves again

This happens to me regardless of application. Even on the desktop

Btw sorry for hijacking the thread..

 

It's not normal right ? I don't remember this ever happening on any other laptops

 

Are you sure it isn't the "Palm Sensitivity" settings for the Synaptics touchpad? Just lower the "Palm Sensitivity" in the Synaptics software and you can use both the keyboard and touchpad at the same time.

 

I haven't even opened mine yet. I will probably do so tomorrow.

 

Hey peter,

I have owned server laptops , and currently own three at home.
an asus n50vn , hp envy 15 and this lil acer...

I believe my asus uses a AUO screen (yep it does) and in comparison is nothing to this!!

I have tried two models from staples, and one now from pc home with the auo 322 - and the screen even in store u could see that it wasn't smooth, and the pixels were more noticeable. its like your eyes are playing tricks at time.

Very noticeable on these forums cause some of the boxes already have some pixel effect to id, and the display pixels make your eyes jump around!!!!

before i got this laptop i even tried the hp dm4, with a lower resolution screen, and it was 10x better, at work we used two lower ends sony sr models and the one has a auo screen that doesn't even compare to this.

WHen i first bought this notebook and turned it one, i thought maybe it was the windows 7 start up process and the dirvers were not installed right, but i was wrong.

I took a risk with pchome thinking okay it might just be the canadian models but nope

i am wrong.

Maybe i am overly sensetive? nope.. i recently sold my asus u30 a2 and that was fairly "budget" consider yet the lcd screen was awesome on it....

TO ADD: when typing this reply,, the reply box has a black border around the text area,, and then another bigger wrapper black border around ...

near the submit and preview post - the borders are very close together..

well if you stare when u type this message u can see the pixels more around there

 

Interesting... I just played around with the synaptics settings and I think I have a fix... just minimize the palmcheck:

 

ahh yes, the palmcheck was almost at maximum

when i lowered it, i could move and type it

thanks aylafan!

 

OH WEIRD !!!!!!!! Thanks man!!!
Sorry for being so ignorant I never looked at the palm check because my palms never actually touch the touch pad when I type on this keyboard LOL

 

You're welcome guys. I found this simple fix when I had the 5740G. Glad I could help.

 

lots of games on this pc home version

more bloatware i believe than the one from staples!

 

i bought it from staples today as well. when they said it will be $100 more because they already opened it and pre-installed everything, i said "i didn't ask you to do that and i'm not going to pay extra for it. i would even take an unopened box but you've done this to every one you have in stock. it's misleading to the customer to charge extra for something after luring them into the store"

the rep said "you're absolutely right" and sold it to me for the advertised $699. end of story.

i suggest you go back and get your extra hard earned money back