Do you consider HDMI important?

I was quite surprised to see a laptop with HD-DVD, nVIDIA 8600M GT, and HDMI(for only $1099) because I had never seen HDMI in a laptop before. With today's HDTV market moving with HDMI, it seemed perfect as we might get a Pioneer Kuro soon. Well my Acer 5920G broke after 6 or so months, and right now it's with BestBuy's Geeksquad.

I might possibly be looking for a new laptop(possibly might exchange my Acer) that is similar in performance. But I can't find many laptops with HD-DVD and HDMI. Asus seemed great, but Acer seems to have it all. Have you used HDMI yet though? Could it be a deciding factor in buying a laptop or not?

 

I used it, but my friend came over and I hooked it up so he wouldn't be breathing down my neck. DO NOT GET AN ACER. NO MATTER WHAT. If you are going to hook it up frequently get it, but if not, dont bother.

 

Why do you say that? Is Acer known for having laptops that break? I might have broken it by either holding down the Power Button to shut it off many times(because it wouldn't work from the desktop) or changing my graphics driver(which didn't allow some HD-DVDs to work, and I had to download something to help the HD-DVD play, but it didn't work and this new installation might have caused my laptop to break).

Well if I get a Pioneer Kuro or Sony Bravia HDTV in the future, I would be using the Acer all the time for HD-DVDs. I'm just hoping that they can get it fixed. Would it be worth to pay the difference for the 5920G model with 2.2 Ghz, Wireless-N, and Bluetooth? My Acer doesn't include these(1.5 Ghz only), so if I had to get it from Acer again, I could maybe pay the difference).

 

Acer's aren't worth how bad they are. They break and do weird things.

 

yah, I would not run and get an acer, they are the worst in the industry. even worse the Gateway IMHO.

 

being such a well rounded media center device, having HDMI on a laptop such as the Acer 5920G makes sense. you can easily port your screen to a larger TV, just like you would do for an HTPC. being how powerful the 5920G can be, it makes an awesome mobile media center HTPC like device...the ability to play HD content via the HD DVD ROM makes the value and usefulness even better.

that aside, there are some valid complaints about Acer's quality control, but so far, with my particular 5920G, my only major complaints are how the touchpad buttons feel kind of flimsy and how when typing (I'm a very speedy touch typist of 75+ WPM) I seem to set off secondary keys that I cannot disable (ie. the / ? key becomes an non-standard E , and +) and return to standard format. hopefully I will learn what combination actives/deactivates that...but at the same time, I'm new to the laptop keyboard layout and am having some difficulties adjusting to some of the smaller keys and differences in the 'reach' necessary to use or not use some of them. :laugh:

I would prefer DVI over HDMI or VGA tho, as it's easy to get a DVI to HDMI dongle or adpater cable.

 

I was also wondering about this whole HDMI thing on laptops. It always made more sense to me to have a DVI, to connect to a larger monitor to work on. (2 screens at once).

I wonder how many people really do have HDTV in their home, and wouldnt already have a HD dvd or blue-ray player already.

 

my audio does not work... no surprise It's an Acer!

 

When I first bought this Acer, I thought that it was very good because Acer was very well known. I wish that someone would have told me that Acer was unreliable BEFORE I bought it. I found this one Toshiba model, a Qosmio F45-AV425(same specs except with Wireless N, .5 Ghz more, and better speakers) , but for one it's been three months so unless I convinced the manager that I can't deal with this acer breaking again, I couldn't get it. For two, Bestbuy doesn't carry it, only BestBuybusiness.com, which I don't know I don't know if they can give it to me either.

 

I guess there is nobody who uses the HDMI as much as I do then.
Got a FULL HD lcd television and it's perfect for gaming on resolution of 1920x1080 (in combination with wireless keyboard and mouse of course), or when I want to watch a (downloaded) 720, 1080p movie. Got special drivers that boost up the 8600GT on the Acer so games like Crysis run pretty smooth at 30-40fps at that resolution

 

Does all of you biased Acer haters even own a recent Acer model?
If you check the forum you'll see that there are almost no complaints regarding recent gemstone series and extensa models. Unlike before, recent Acer models are getting positive reviews.

That said, since I don't own a HDTV, I would rather have a DVI port rather than a HDMI port.

 

i love my 5920g. only problem with i had with mine was i dropped it and had to get the hard drive replaced. acer might have had some problems before but my experience with them is good so far.

 

Sorry about going off-topic, but what about the rest of the laptop? How did you drop it?

 

it fell off a desk onto carpet. theres no dents or scratches just messed up the hard drive in the fall.

 

I got my 5920 G from BestBuy for $1099; it had .5 Ghz less than the better one, no bluetooth, and no wireless N. Where did everyone else buy their Acer 5920G from? I still can't believe that it broke on me. Might have been a graphics driver change(158.45) from 3 months ago, having to hold the power button to shut it down repeatedly(shut down button on start menu wouldn't work), or Vista itself. I just hope that BestBuy fixes it soon.

 

Ok... did you restore the system to factory default first? No offense but it gets really annoying when people start to blame the laptop for the issues caused by the OS.

Anyway... high-end models are widely available outside the US. I got mine at Taiwan.

 

I got mine for $799 two weeks ago @ Futureshop in the sale before the Boxing Week sale. mine has no Bluetooth, but I do have the Intel 4965AGN networking card...so N networking is an option for me even with their 3 year warranty, I got it cheaper then similar units sold at other retailers were selling it for!

 

i got mine from best buy also.

 

It never let me do any restore or recovery. I would need the Recovery CD, but that costs $50, so I gave it to the BestBuy Geeksquad(free since Acer 1 year warranty applies to Acer Certified companies like Bestbuy).

 

No you do not need the Recovery CD. 5920G comes with a really good recovery software. Furthermore, there is a recovery partition that you can access during boot.

Next time please don't say that your laptop broke just because of a software problem.

 

hdmi is nice to use because it can send the sound. To hook up to my 24" screen I just use a cable with hdmi on one end and dvi on the other. It looks better than a vga cable at 1920x1200.

 

is that with a an Acer running an HDMI connection DrTibbs or a different notebook? my current understanding is that nVidia does not have an HDCP compliant video/audio streaming solution. HDCP for video only, yes, but when it includes the audio, it's not, as the 8000 series from nVidia doesn't have the onboard audio processing powers that ATi currently does have, which is HDCP compliant for both audio/video. at least, when it comes to playing HD content, otherwise there should be no problem

 

Patrick, have have you not noticed that Sephiroth has stated a few times that the auto-restore function did not work? it does basically sound like there was a serious corruption of the Vista operating system and perhaps even a hardware failure 'somewhere'...but, being as unfamiliar as I am with restore features via partitions or recovery discs, I can't say if the restore feature could have been FUBAR even if there is no hardware failure.

in any case, Patrick, being the recovery partition failed, Seph would have needed the restore discs, hence pay the fee, or turn the laptop over to Best Buy's Geek Squad (personally I think Big Buy's Nerd Herd sounds better) who would look at repairing the issue and billing Acer as it's still under warranty.

Sephiroth, I suggest when you get your notebook back you IMMEDIATELY make restore discs, so should something ever happen again, you would use them rather then the auto-restore partition

 

the 5920g does stream audio through the hdmi port. I remember it working automatically before I trashed vista for XP+ubuntu. doubt it works now but that doesn't bother me

 

Well I've been rereading the thread and the original poster did not imply in any way that eRecovery had failed. Considering that he didn't even make the recovery disks, I assume that he simply doesn't even know about the recovery feature. However, I do apologize if the original poster did try eRecovery and the recovery process had failed.

 

As for your comment on a NEW acer, well yes I have a new one. Ferrari 5005WLMI. this one still retail close to 2000 dollars.

The reason I hate acer...
well after 5 F*****g repairs
slow non-24hour phone 'support'
basically non existent email 'support'
failure to honor there 'vista express upgrade'

I bought an HP Desktop, and did have hardware failure. HP reps. were at least helpful, they had my computer fixed in 3 day! the fastest acer every did it was 2weeks. Oh, by the way HP fixed it the first time, acer couldn't. they tried 5 times, then after 2 months of phone call they replaced it.

 

sorry to hear about your bad experience. So do you hate Acer support as well as your ferrari laptop? Or just the support?

Correct me if I'm wrong but Ferrari 5005 is at least a year old.

I also apologize for my comment earlier.