College Laptop - 3810T a good choice?

Hey all! (first post )

I am starting college in August, and I need a new laptop. After two months of endless research and searching for deals, I think I'm ready to order myself a Timeline 3810T-6415 (maybe a Travelmate 8371 or 8471, but I'm not sure I can wait that long).

Here's the dilemma - my previous laptop was an Acer Aspire 9300, purchased 3 years ago (Black Friday). Last year, the 9300 was the victim of frozen hinges, which consequently ripped through the plastic bezel and made the laptop need something to constantly prop up its heavy screen. After some searching on Google, it turns out many others had the same problem. Of course, this left me (and my parents) with a bad impression toward Acer.

The only other laptop I have on consideration is the Best Buy Asus U81A. Although the Asus is $250 cheaper, I think the Timeline's battery life, size, thickness, and hard drive space are worth it. I don't know, I want this laptop to last all four years of college. Technically my 9300 still works now, but the hinge incident happened after less than two years of use.

Honestly I'd much rather have the Timeline over the U81A, but it's the Acer brand that's making me hesitate. I'm not put off by the 3810's lack of an optical drive, I hardly use it anyway.

Can I still trust Acer? And has Acer improved it's build quality to garner 900 of my dollars?

 

It has improved give it a try.
Service Standards still as lousy though.

 

To be honest with you, very few laptops will last 4 years (depends how you use it though). If you really want, though, to last, you have to pick something more powerful than portable, in my opinion and ultra-portable laptops are not very powerful to last for 4 years. So if you buy a laptop buy the one with most powerful CPU, graphic card is always welcome, more HDD space, more RAM etc.
The timeline series is new so we don't know how it's going to 'behave'. Generally, Acer laptops are ok. Very good quality/price ratio. My first Acer died after 2 years (I used a lot though, work, games videos you name it) but still I bought Acer again. Unfortunately, my experience says that laptops are not like cars. Even if you buy the best quality, after a year the laptop might die. That is because it's electronics and all the laptops are meant to die some point so I would suggest not to worry about how long it will last but how long can I extend the warranty. Acer is offering extended warranty (with a small price) which I am currently thinking of getting for 3 years. The good thing is that even if you buy the laptop, you can buy the extended warranty afterwards as long as the purchase was done in the last 3 months.