The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
The best place will also depend on whether your state has a sales tax, and if so whether the particular retailer has to charge you that tax. Here in Tennessee with almost a 10% tax, it makes a big difference to me.
If you don't have sales tax, I'd try convincing a brick and mortar store to price match a website price, giving you extra peace of mind about returns / repairs. If you have sales tax, I'd recommend finding an online retailer who has no presence in your state, and hence doesn't have to charge sales tax on your purchase.
I did some digging for myself, and came back with the following two places that sell the KIT2 variant (which supposedly includes the extended warranty with Total Protection, although Acer told me they have no such SKU number and that you'd have to confirm with the retailer what is being included). Both these places are all well-rated on ResellerRatings.com.
SKU #: LX.TAX06.034-KIT2
PCNation: $2127.04, no tax or shipping
MWave: $2152.16, no tax, shipping costs reasonable
The current cheapest I'm aware of without the warranty is ZipZoomFly. They're charging $1964.99, no tax or shipping. That makes the cost of the warranty from PCNation effectively $162.05.
MWave also sell the warranty separately for $167.68 - SKU is 146.AD077.002 - but I'm not sure of the implications of buying the laptop from one retailer, and the warranty from another. All I do know is that while I've seen people here describing Total Protection as an "accidental damage" warranty, Acer's site does *not* describe it that way, and that Acer also says the warranty must be purchased within 180 days of the *manufacture* date.
Either way though, an extra two years of limited warranty, plus three years of concurrent Total Protection warranty - which entitles you to replacement if the laptop cannot be repaired, and means Acer covers shipping both ways - is a damned good deal for $160.
Nobody can tell you that - the stock you get from any retailer depends on what they got from their distributor. Sometimes the stock will go out the distributor's door the moment it arrives, sometimes it will sit on a shelf for weeks.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
