Acer's Bad Reputation .............

Why does Acer have such a bad Reputation compared to some other brands?

I had two Acer laptops and they both were great. I still have the one in my Sig, and sold my aspire 1804.

Customer service repair which I only needed once for my 1804 was outstanding.

Both Acers never ran too hot, most of the time quite normal temp. And fan noise was never loud.


I'll admit that Acer doesn't make "High End" Laptops like Sony or Dell XPS, but pound for pound (meaning SPECS) Acer has the best prices out here.

Acer does have some flaws like FAT32 and Empowering software, but overall I think Acer is Great quality for the price.

If you want a "HIGH END" notebook, then you gotta pay for it.

 

It's not just Acer using FAT32 for their recovery partition. My friend just bought a new HP dv2000 core 2 duo and HP's recovery partition is also FAT32.
So don't worry, my Aspire 5500 is serving me well for over a year now

 

But the main partition is still NTFS unlike Acer.

The main problem with Acer is that they dont offer customizable models and people(avg Joe) barely know them atleast here in the US. The other issue with Acer is that sometimes you might not get the same specifications as listed on the spec or the even the sticker on the laptop. I had an aspire 3003wlci and it was supposed to have a CD burner only as standard, but some models shipped out with dual layer DVD burners. I got a free upgrade and Acer's mistake turned out to be a good thing, but it can go the other way arond as well. People have had 4200rpm HDD when the spec sheet reffered to 5400rpm. They advertised crystalbrite screens and when people bought the laptop they found it was just a regular matte screen. There have been many such issues. Also the quality is pretty much average. They offer cheap laptops but their quality is also cheap. Service isnt anything special.

They also sell some of their low end aspires(like 3000,3100) with 4 cell 2000mAH batteries. The battery life just stinks and at most you will get 1hr out of it.

I had good opinions of Acer to begin with but after owning one, I dont think buying an Acer is worth it.

 

I was very keen on the upcoming 8215, until I decided on a 17" notebook and discovered the DELL 9400/e1705.

The 8215 has everything I want in a 15" notebook, and looks great.

 

yeah, that thing, that you can not customize acer notebook to meet your needs, sucks...

for example - I like acer aspire 5680, but only model, that I could find has C2D T5500, 5400 rpm hdd and GF7600go 128mb, whereas I would like T7200, 7200rpm hdd (and in best case with GF7600 256mb).

 

I've always thought high of Acer Ferrari...

 

I think Acer's main problem is their absolutely crappy software that they ship with these PC's.

I pulled apart my 5672 looking for a way to solve the heat issue (which, by the way Acer could solve with a BIOS upgrade to circulate more air), and everything in the unit is the latest, greatest, name brand equipment. And the price was incredible at the time compared to the competition.

So a complete reformat, reload, and very careful application of drivers is needed to make it a great PC, but the average user is no way going to go through that.

My 5672 has become more of a hobby to see how to fix all the stupid software stuff, but if I was the average guy I would have done what they do: Not spend any time on a forum, return it and rag on it in reviews and opinions.

 

Acer seems like a pretty hot seller in Canadian university towns. If you need a high end, high durability laptop for more rough use, you also need to spend some high end money. Given that anything you buy today will be hopelessly out of date 3 years from now, is it really wise to spend more than necessary?

My 5044 came with the least amount of pre-installed software that I've had on any computer I've ever bought (and I like that). And none of what's there is causing me any problems whatsoever. The FAT32 thing is a total non-issue. If you don't want to leave it as FAT32, just use Windows' convert utility. It works well and it takes only a few minutes to do the conversion (do a disk clean and a defragment first). You may gain a few gigs of free space in the process.

Just leave it as the two original partitions, and convert both of them to NTFS. This should not prevent any future restore to factory original operation. Most people agree that large drives are better divided into at least a couple of partitions anyway.

The one thing I don't trust on any Windows computer are utilities to boost this or that, or to increase performance. I think Win XP operates better when left to its own devices. So, I leave those totally unchecked in the Empowering tool. I do use it for freeing up unused memory though, because surprisingly, a great many applications don't free up what they no longer need. It's also a great way to tell what programs are memory hogs, like a popular 3rd party web browser, for example.

I've had a Compaq Presario notebook recently too. It ran hotter than my ACER 5044, and it was bloated full of useless software trial editions or crippleware. Only MS Works on it was not a trial, but that is of very limited use (though useful for some things). It's battery life was also much less than the at least 3 hours I'm getting with the ACER. More like an hour and a half.

Personally, I think all laptops tend to be finicky, trouble-prone machines. I would not try to save a few bucks buying from some distant internet-based discounter. Get it locally, from a reputable retailer that provides its own support, and preferably has its own repair facility. I think you're hurting when you depend entirely on the manufacturer's support, no matter who it is, with the possible exception of HP which seems to be outstanding in this regard. You could easily be buying an ACER intended for another country's market.

 

Well being used to thinkpads which were all older, going to the acer was a little different, it definatly feels much cheaper like a hyundai or something, but at the same time there was no way I could afford a new thinkpad so Iam very happy with the acer for the price, however I hate looking at it, I think its ugly I hate the black and a ton of silver, hp does this to on their home line, why can't all laptops be monotone colours, they look much better this way, Iam glad lenovo keeps the thinkpads black.

 

I dont know how it is in the US but in Eastern Europe Acer (and in Europe as a whole) Acer has gained a dominant position in the market. Its the biggest seller here if I remember correctly.
I think that some brands have completely overpriced models such as Sony (I can never take sony as a serious notebook manufacturer). The offer quality but there is always something missing. And the price is inadequate as it was with their LCDs(which in fact were nothing special, Samsung are much better).
Asus too is overpriced, maybe its in Europe only but believe me or not - Celeron based notebooks start from 900$. How can someone resist buying it...In Asia its different, they have stronger presence there.
Acer manages to achieve the best quality-price ratio. Quality is good, not good as Asus but I'm not willing to paying 600-700$ more to get it.
Someone said Acer doesnt make high end notebooks. Take Ferrari for example or some high end Travelmates. Also Acer doesnt offer customizable machines, but Dell doesnt use AMD chips and so does toshiba. And what if I am an AMD fan?
The most annoying thing is their support. Their site is terrible! In every country they offer different models not even listed there. The second most annoying thing is that they feel cheap

 

Acer are actually very reliable laptops and gained good reputation in europe aslo acording to "which?computer" survey they are most reliable laptop brand of all and only few (8% out of all their customers) encountred any problems.

 

I agree.. all the stories you hear is probably people maltreating their laptop...

 

True, although FAT32 was for compatibiltiy with linux and other O/S. But since its pre-installed in windows (and the fact that the average user won't bother re-installing and just use windows) i'd though NTFS for the system drive seems sensible...

I don't see much performance increase using the software. Maybe power management (but windows does power management pretty well) the only reason why acer PM has longer battery life is due to monitor brightness control (which unforutantely windows LACK!!! shame, windows xp was designed with desktops in mind... hopefully vista mobility centre will solve this problem)

 

Im finding that acer laptops are very popular in Canada. Not too long ago, my current ASWMLi sold out of FutureShop. I had to wait another week or so to get one. So far, no problems at all after almost 2 months. Build quality is actually quite good for a budget notebook like this. I also agree that acer provides the best bang for your money today. Plus, I'm still using my 12-year-old acer desktop PC (for word processing and retro 2D gaming); never needed any repairs for it before.