Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi discontinued?

Per approval of the moderators, I am posting a new thread to continue discussion as to whether the Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi has been discontinued. I have been told this by a retailer who cancelled my order after charging me for the laptop, stating that:

...and then going on to state that...

This implies that they are unable to source shipments from their distributor. Can anybody with access to distributor stock databases, Acer sales support info, Acer product roadmaps, etc. please confirm two things for me?

a) Has the Travelmate 8204WLMi been discontinued, or is it about to be after the current stock sells through?

b) Is there a replacement (perhaps changes to processor, memory, hard disk, etc.?) and if so, what is the model number / SKU number / availability date?

Please do not post in this thread other than to answer these questions.

 

The information about 8200 series is still on ACER web site :

http://us.acer.com/acereuro/page4.d...aram=US&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=2017775724

TM8204WLMi
genuine Windows® XP Professional; Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2500 (2MB L2 cache, 2.0GHz, 667MHz FSB); 2GB (1/1) DDR2 533 SDRAM; 120GB SATA hard drive, 5400RPM; modular Super-Multi (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM) drive; 5-in-1 card reader; 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) TFT display; ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1600 graphics, 256MB DDR; 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Bluetooth™, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem.

 

Thanks, I'm aware of that. Acer are very slow to update their websites, though, so it really doesn't mean much. (For example, they announced the new Ferrari notebooks three weeks ago, yet they *still* haven't been added to the products page on Acer's global site, nor *any* of the regional sites I checked).

 

that's b/c the ferrari will not be released for awhile. they will only put up notebooks that are available for purchase. i would try contacting another reseller though to see if the 8204 has been discontinued. i hope you got your money back.

 

Could be, or could just be that they're extremely sloppy about updating their website. I'm pretty sure the Aspire 9110 was up there a while before they were selling it, and there are all sorts of other problems on Acer's site (for example, go to the Aspire 9110 page, select USA in the drop-down and you'll get a 404 error).

Oh, and they haven't put the 8204 on their Notebooks Regulatory Table when it has been selling for literally months.

They basically don't have a good procedure in place for updating the site, from what I can tell. Not that it is important, it just means that likely they don't take pages down instantly that they discontinue a model either...

Oh, and no, I am still waiting on my money back.

 

From what I know of the TM8204 is still selling on all the major computer outlets; newegg.com, compusa, ect. There is another TM model that I have not seen in awhile that also had the x1600 but had some heating issues. This might be the model people are thinking of. I know the TM8204 has been Acer's main seller.

Actually wasn't the TM4202 offered with a dedicated video card? On newegg.com they are offering it with only an intergrated card. And the one I was looking at had the intergrated camera.

 

Please list the other sites that you have gone to that show the 8204 in inventory.

 

Excuse me? What does that have to do with anything?

As we've already seen from the case of MWave, whether a site *lists* itself as having stock of a computer often means nothing - you don't find out for sure that they have stock until you hand over your credit card details.

Let's keep this on topic please, which is to find out whether or not the 8204 has been discontinued?

 

Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi is still being sold. It remains Acer's flagship laptop.

 

Where's a moderator when you need one?

Do you really think I am stupid enough not to have checked for other versions? I've hunted for any possibility of a replacement model number everywhere, and can find none whatsoever. Everywhere lists the current model number, or has no similar notebook at all. The fact they list the current model number doesn't mean it isn't discontinued though.

Products are frequently discontinued some time before the replacement product is launched, so as to help sell out the old stock first - otherwise when the new product came out, they'd have to drop the price on the old product greatly to get rid of it.

 

Thanks for the reply. May I ask your source for that info?

(The reason I ask is that MWave are supposedly an Acer Authorized Reseller, their logo is even on Acer's site - but they claim they can't get any more 8204s and won't *be* getting any).

 

TigerDirect : On stock
PCConnection: On Stock
Staples : On Stock

Of course, you already did that , but www.pricegraber.com

 

Yup, but like I said, retailer stock doesn't mean a product hasn't been discontinued. Give me a model number of a laptop that's been discontinued 6-12 months, I bet I can still find you retailers claiming to be "in stock".

Even if they really *have* stock, it could be old stock that's been sitting on a shelf.

Thanks for the reply though.

 

Ok I will check with Acer in Malaysia again to be doubly sure and update this forum. The 8204 model often face shortages over here due to limited stock and demand.

I am sure we will see the 8205 before the 8300 series comes out (maybe 3rd Q this year). There is a 8200 series model that spots T2600 cpu, it hasnt made the debut here yet. On that note, sigh...we havent seen the debut of the Ferrari 5000 yet although Acer displayed them at Computex 06 in Taiwan. Why discontinue the 8204 when there is no alternative to fill in the demand?

You may want to check with Acer US as we do have different models sold at times. Ie. we dont have Aspire 5672 with Ati X1600 but we have an Aspire 5673 (T2400) with Ati X1600.

By the way, I just bought my TM 8204WLMi on the 17th of June 2006. This stock arrived in Malaysia on the 15th of June from Taiwan. Since they are still shipping new stocks out of Taiwan, I seriously doubt the claims of the store that says it was discontinued.

Acer TM8204WLMi
SN: LXTAX06109622124AE2515
System BD/BIOS: 15/3311

 

PC Nation still has it in stock.

 

Yep, I have one on the way to me from PC Nation as we speak, plus the MediaBay battery and extended warranty. I'm looking into sourcing the MediaBay second hard disk from Europe at the moment, so I can have 240 GB of storage space, and I'll be sorted.

 

Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi is still in production - source: friend works at acer finance dept

 

Much appreciated...

 

AFAIK, the 8204 is still live and running in Singapore

 

Not that this makes a difference, but I just go tmine from buy.com.

It was either them or newegg. However, I have seen posts on other forums about this being a possibility, but I believe that people were getting models with very recent build dates, leading them to believe that it has not been dicontinued.