Goodbye to the trusty 5102, Say Hello to my little friend!!

Yep, just when I thought there would not be a laptop to meet ALL and I mean ALL the criteria I had for my laptop, here comes about as good a laptop at it can get..


Criteria (Yes, I know some sound illogical )

1. The most advanced (or close to it) chips on the market today
Check. Turion 64 X2

2. A huge hard drive
Check. A whopping 120 GB

3. Lots of fast RAM
Check. 1 GB DDR2 RAM

4. Decent Graphics Card for non hard core gaming
Check. ATI Radeon Xpress 1100

5. Webcam and Microphone
Check. 225 degree cam + better placed Mic

6. All Necessary ports/slots
Check. 3 USBs, SD Card, PCMCIA and also a SVideo (missing in 5102). Note: no firewire but I had an external PCMCIA card and I almost never used it.

7. Portable. I.E a 14.1 " screen or lower

8. Cheap. Yep, I wanted all of this at a dirt cheap price!!

The ACER 5102 got ever so close except for #7 and a SVideo port.


And what you get ladies and gentlemen is........... drumroll........

THE ACER 5050 - 5554 (the last 4 digits are important if you want the webcam.)


$699.00 (no rebates involved) plus a free inkjet printer (like as if the price wasn't unbeatable by itself)

Location: STAPLES

Availability: AVAILABLE THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!

http://staples.shoplocal.com/staple...278465&rapid=0&listingid=-2094226144&offerid=




RUN.......... I MEAN RUN .....FOR THIS ONE TO THE NEAREST STORE OR TRY AND GET IT ONLINE.

(Note the 5050 sold by CompUSA does NOT have the webcam!!! Do NOT be fooled by the display picture on their ad, and theirs is more expensive )


YOU CAN'T TRUMP THIS!

 

the most advanced CPU is the Core 2 Duo followed by the Core Duo

 

Work with me here .... I did put #8 in there

As far as my personal philosophy on any of my toys, unless #8 is met, I cannot truly enjoy my purchase.

 

Nice. Good find mate. Sounds like you'll enjoy it. So what if it doesn't have c2d? The turions are still good chips.
It's nice that is has svideo out too.

Enjoy!

 

Looks like a nice laptop for the price...A review or some pictures of the laptop would be appreciated...

 

My criteria were just about identical to your's. I guess I have some thinking to do. I just bought the 5102 about a month and a half ago, and it had everything I wanted except the smaller screen for increased portability.

 

Where is the review? This looks great!

Put in a 256 Go7600, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, XP MCE and a DVI and charge $999 and I would be all over it!

 

This is essentially a carbon copy of the 5102WLMI lapatop with a smaller screen and an SVideo port.

Quick first impressions -

1. My laptop is now a lot more usable now that I have a smaller lighter model to tote around.

2. The battery on the 5050 is of a lower capacity and last distinctly less than the 5102 battery. The battery is a long skinny type and not the square one like the 5102. I am willing to sacrifice power capacity at this time for the portability plus I have a universal laptop battery for long trips.

3. The camera has a slighly different look and is 0.3 MP like the 5102. However, I did notice that the camera on the 5102 was sharper whenever I used it. I haven't messed with the settings much so it might be a hit or miss depending on your particular batch of laptops. Some people had mentioned their 5102 cam being grainy too. This is also not a deal breaker for me considering I have a cam built in for basic video conf instead of tethering and hauling a separate one.

4. I have a pretty easy time typing on the keyboard. It has a nice hard clicky feel to it.

Everything else is basically just like the 5102. All the chips,processors,graphic card, drive are the same.

The heat vent is to the left hand side of the unit which makes it a little hot if you block it with your leg while typing on it.

The bottom however stays cool for the most part.

The microphone is placed towards the top of the keyboard and works better than the 5102 placement.

All in all, I am VERY happy with the switch. I can actually use the laptop more since its more pick up and go at this size.

Did I mention the price was $699?????

Its not that hard to get top of the line specs on your machine if you want to spend money like crazy on your machine, just like a car etc.

The trick is to get as close to the top as possible but pay peanuts for your purchase

I think this is one of those rare models that come around very rarely and meets all the laptop requirements of most people.

 

yep... this lappy looks about perfect for me.... what kind of battery life are you getting?

 

About 2.5 hours tops but I don't mess with the settings a lot to save energy either. I like my screen bright

Also, all my old/Compaq AC Adapters work with Acer so I pretty much have an AC adapter in every room so I rarely go all out on the battery.

If there was a flaw, it would be the lack of an extended battery like HP does. Man, my DV1000 laptop would run full steam FOREVER before I started thinking about charging.... I still miss it a lot ... sigh..... if it had a cam on it I would have stick with it, Centrino, 80 GB and all..... (they do have cams on them now but are also more expensive)

You will not go wrong with this one if you get it for the $699 plus a free printer.


Piece of (immoral?) advice - If you already have plenty of printers and don't need another one, simply take it back to a different staples and say you dont have a reciept and they will give you store credit like I got (about $75). That way you can get an accessory you really want like a case or something

 

sound immoraly awesome...lol

2.5 without fiddling with anything is fairly good...

 

tried to order it online... and its OUT OF STOK!!!!

whew...... went fast

 

GOOD BUY!!!

I paid $875 for my 5102, but it has 2GB instead of the usually 1GB or 512MB.
That had me sold!!

Careful when using old adapters, especially from differ brands/models. It can get to hot or short out.

 

I have one of these waiting for me at the staples near me.. its the last one. Just not sure if I want it or if I should spend the $170 more.. get a smaller HD and less ram but ill get the core 2 duo T5500.. a bit of a better webcam and the go 7200 vid card which is definitely better than the ATI express 1100 but not much better im sure.. also I will get a better if i get the HP... what do you guyes think? The sooner the better...

Josh

 

I recomend the core2duo, only cause I want the 5050 that you have waiting....hehehehehe
BTW...where are you to have availability?

 

After finding this thread I went out to my local Staples and picked up the last one they had in stock. (typing this on it right now) Neither of the employees I dealt with mentioned anything about a free printer. Was that part mentioned in the circular?

 

Yes its mentioned on the last page of the circular at the top.. free printer with any desktop or laptop purchase... its worth $70 and I can return it within the next 2 weeks and pick up anything thats on holiday sales with that money.. go back tomorrow and tell them to hook you up.. or go to staples.com and look at the circular for your zipcode and see if its on the back page at the top. THey held the last one for me for 3 days... and then after I bought it I went back to return it because i realized i messed up and put it on my debit card when I should have put it on my credit card and gotten some airline miles. I only used the laptop for a few minutes so far but have a feeling I wont be returning it.

Ekim im in New York, Long Island... They were also available online yesterday or the day before.

 

Cool, thanks for the info. I think I could handle $70 worth of accessories. Thanks Staples! You're so generous!

 

Okay so I havent had much time at all to mess with this thing yet... hopefully Saturday I can give it a few hours... I wanted to know if anybody who has this model has any comments about the speakers and the integrated mic. I put the volume all the way up to high and yeah if the thing is on my lap I can hear everything fine but if I was watching a dvd from a few feet away I wouldnt be able to hear anything.. the sound quality is fine but it just doesnt get loud at all... Id rather it get louder and lose some quality than stay as low as it is... Is this just for me? Am I missing something maybe? Also the mic... I havent tried windows sound recorde ryet but I went over to a chat room that you can talk in and as soon as I click the talk button in the room the mic goes crazy.. echoing and clicking.. thats about it.. so far everything else seems good.. goin to try to do a clean install soon as well. any comments would be appreciated.

Josh

 

hmm..... is there any volume control jogwheel or anything on the laptop itself?

also since this is a relatively new lappy... you may want to check and make sure that you have the right sound driver installed.

I say this becuase the 5102 has known problems with loading the x200 instead of the x300 graphics driver
which BTw.. is the x300 driver loaded on the 5050?

 

Do they ship to Europe? UK in particular. We do have Staples' over here...

 

doesn't seem that they are shipping anywhere..... all sold out...

 

I dont know... the speakers are so low playing any type of media... I am updating windows now.. about 74 updates so see what happens after that but this cant be right.. . headphones work fine.. loud then.. but not the regular laptop speakers

 

I'm returning the 5050 I picked up today at the local staples. It's dog slow.... turns out the processor only has 256K cache! The 5100 has a 512K cache. Also while the size is a bit smaller (only about an inch narrower), the weight is pretty much exactly the same. SO I just don't see enough of an improvement to keep it. Good thing staples has a good return policy

 

weight about the same?

seems to me the specs say that the wiehgt is a pound less...

are the weights really equal?

cache isn't everything......... a sempron with 256MB of cache beat a Pentium M with 512 in every test....
mostly, an AMD needs less cache because it has a faster link to the system memory

 

The weight and size difference is substantial enough that my laptop is finally being used for what it is meant to be - a portable PC for making online phone calls, listening to music, slingboxing etc. Regardless of how much I liked the 5102, it was not a very pick up and go PC.
My PC speeds are just fine for what I do including burning DVDs, surfing etc, no hardcore gaming here.
I added a half Gig to it for 1.5 RAM and things are good.

Also, the audio while not that loud is ok for a small laptop. Music was just fine. The DVDs were originally low but after upgrading to the latest Realtek drivers there has been a marked improvemnt on that.
Basically NEW DVDs play well with good sound, I did have a "backup" DVD play with lower sound.

All in all this laptop is the closest you can get to the promised land of all the different things I mentioned in the first thread of the post.

 

hmmm...... you mean it comes with just 1 1GB stick?
why not 2 512's so you can get dual channel?

 

Treominator.. yeah the speakers are okay... for a backup DVD they were real low but when I was watchin a xvid file the sound was decent enough... I came across one more problem though which is the webcam. My frames out of the box are horrible... very jumpy and just not even usable... have you tried it out yet? I read up on a fix where you have to turn off the setting for low light.. but I cant find the settings for this thing.. there is no where for me to change anything about the camera.. any ideas? Thanks.

 

Just FYI besides free printer as of oct 26 you also get a coupon for free Microsoft Windows Vista premier upgrade... not bad for 699

 

check around for workarounds for the 5102... the two are corbon copy alike...

too bad for all you who bought it before the 26'th.....

 

It does come with 2 512MB sticks. I bought a 1 GB stick for $40 after rebate form CompUSA, took out one of the 512 and put it in the wife's lappy to make hers 1 GB too (her lappy was a Toshiba 80 GB Centrino for $499 plus a all in one printer from Best Buy).

 

Treo any info about the webcam?

 

For the free upgrade, did you have to buy it after the 26th? I got mine on the 26th, and nobody at the store said anything about the printer (which I went back for) or any kind of free upgrade. This thing is turning into the gift that keeps on giving.

 

The info about the printer was in the circular... nothing came up on their computer when they scanned mine.. I had to remind them and the upgrade if bought on the 26th or after... they dont need to know about that.. that is through acer and it is if you bought ont he 26th or after. Jmuffin... please try making a video using windows movie maker and see if its all choppy like mine? And also can you find a way to play with the settings of the webcam? Thanks.

 

Is anyone who bought this one considered to get the Staples warranty (Accidental is what I am looking for thanks to my 3 yr old

Since this laptop is pretty much what I need for a while I am thinking about ways to protect my investment. Any good or bad experiences with Staples' warranty?

I have 14 days since my date of purchase which is , of course, Oct 26th
to decide to get the warranty.

 

I downloaded the latest drivers from ACER for the cam - they had 2 kinds - a "bison" and a "Suyi..something"
I got the Bison one. The cam appears a bit better but I might still be calling ACER to see if I am missing anything w.r.t. settings.

The cam is plenty fine as it is for basic video conferencing, I dont use it for any important picture taking etc.

 

If I keep this thing I will be getting theft and accident insurance from safeware.com and also I did not get any extended warranty from staples. I dont want to take pictures with the camera but I dont think I could use the video for web conferencing... its very delayed and not smooth at all.. thats what I am trying to find out... I want to know if its the same for everyone or my camera is just bad and is there a fix for it but seems like not a lot of people have this acer model

 

My cam is no 1.3 MP cam but it should be sufficient for vid conf. Did you try to download the latest driver from ACER?

 

morcth, I tried making a couple videos and I am getting some delay and slight choppiness. I've actually never used any webcam before so I can't say if it's better or worse than any other camera though. I played around with a couple of the camera settings in Movie Maker without noticing any real difference in capture quality. I have not been able to find any way to change settings outside of Movie Maker.

On a semi-related note, I can't seem to capture sound with my videos in movie maker. What should I have the audio input source set as?

 

wow.... that was lucky for you Treominator.......

good... 2 sticks of 512.... anything else really wouldn't make much sense

is the Webcam worth it?
I can get the model without the webcam right now from Compusa for $749......

 

Yes I got the 3 year Accidental warranty... covers it all for just failing to you dropping an breaking the thing including the LCD screen (but you get just one free LCD screen replace)… 3 year Accidental warranty is $280… on laptops is I good this to have particularly if you carry it around a lot ….I have in on my old lap top and in use the warranty about once a year…. The old on is going in for one final once over before I sell it
---------------------------------------

As for the free Window Vista upgrade…

Staples sale person gave me a printout (I had ask if they were doing a Window Vista upgrade)
....and there was something from Acer pack in box with the user guide

The upgrade is valid for between 10/26/2006 and 3/31/2007 … however if Staples follow true to form if you got it before 10/26/2006 take your paperwork in and the should let you do a paper return and rebuy to have the "buy date" as the new 10/26/2006 date

It's no different then a 30 day price guarantee.. and for the same reason… they don’t want you returning it just because you could find a better deal in the 30 day return window.. it cost them money.. it just better business and more cost effective to match

 

I just checked out safeware, and it says my policy Premium would be $39. Please excuse me if this question is too stupid, but how often do I have to pay that? Is it a monthly thing?

 

Ekim, I had actually bought the CompUSA one by accident thinking it had the cam as shown in the ad.
It is the exact same one minus the cam. That one still has the microphone in the same location.

The cam was kind of important for me since it "completed" the laptop (kind of like Jerry McGuire )

It is not the highest quality and CompUSA actually gave me their best webcam the 1.3 MP Logitech Notebook cam for free to me for their mistake.

If I hadn't stumbled on the Staples ad by sheer accident, I would have probably kept the CompUsa model. However, if you don't mind the size, the 5102 is a better option for completeness.

I really did not want to have to tote the camera separately and even if the one I have is average quality it is still suffices in a pinch. ALso it is the only one I know that ROTATES which is a big plus plus has a cool factor to it.

Also the cost at Staples was $50 less plus I got the printer store credit for another $75 so a $125 is not something to scoff at.

I would definitely make them match the price at Staples or offer a free webcam to you!

The ONLY other laptop I would have considered at that point besides the ACER was a DV1000 with a cam built in for $899. I Love the Quickplay, Remote and the Extended battery on that one.

 

I looked at Safeware but it did not see, like what I was looking for plus they have some sort of deductible involved. Plus the minimum to insure is $4000 worth of gadgetry.

I just want something that if I spill coffee or my 3 yr old thinks the lappy is a frisbee I get something comparable in return.

I think Staples warrany for about $280 is what I will be going for considering that I shaved off $125 (see above) from the CompUsa option.

Plus I made a net profit of $50 selling my 5102 on Ebay. I ended up paying only 600 bucks for that one via circuit city (the last rebate check arrived today!).

I think this one might be a keeper for me and considering my fickle mind over my toys that is saying a lot!

I mean you will REALLLY have to stretch your imagination to top a 120 GB HD, a dual core processor, 1 GB RAM, Cam + Mic, for $700.

 

Treo I dont know where you got that info but safeware has no deductible and it covers theft as well as accidental damage. Since I live in NY I can insure this laptop for $800 for either $39 a year (JMuffin its a yearly payment or if you call up you can get a 4 year deal for $95. NY is the least expensive state. Call them up on Monday and have a chat with them.. they explain everything. There is no minimum to insure... I have to go check out the website to see where you got this stuff from. Definitely a lot cheaper than staples or something and your covered for theft too.. but you need a police report. Manufacturer defects is not covered though.. thats for the menaufacturer or extended warranties.

Make sure the recording levels are all the way up on the reatek software thing and I think I have my input settings on the stero thing or the mixer thing... cant remember.

Treo sadly I checked and my cam had the current drivers inststalled and I did end up trying to update anyway but no dice... the quality is really bad... just not smooth at all. Problem is I dont understand why acer would even put the thing on if this is the quality people would get... Ill post a link to a video I make tomorrow so you can see what im talking about and let me know if your quality is similar.

Josh

 

I also just found this for extending warranties.. will be emailing and calling them on Monday

http://www.warrantydomain.com/

 

Has anyone confirmed that Acer is doing the Vista voucher? I emailed them but no response.

 

I got a card with my acer laptop that said from october 26th to march 7th or something you get a free upgrade

 

but the price..yech

however... seeing as ow it doesn't seem that Staples is coming back instock on these jewels, having compusa price match might be the next best bet..... How would you go about doing a thing like that? i.e.....if you were purchacing on the internet...?

Like you.... I thought the 5102 was the best it could get... but along came this diminutive version and I was sold.....

 

I know what you are saying, I had the 5102 for only $600 but the smaller form factor of the 5050 was the deciding factor and the cost came out to be almost the same.


Ekim, I would recommend checking out some other 14.1 models before you make the plunge and see if you can find somthing you like better for $749 if you were going to make the plunge.
You will probably not find a 120 GB drive in the specs thats for sure. Other than that you can possibly find an HP or something (HP has the extended battery - a BIG thumbs up).

I usually look in the Open Box section of Circuit City when I shop for bargains because it gives you a little wiggle room with the price especially if you act like you want to buy a warranty from them

I am not sure how much you paid for you 5102 but unless you can get the 5050 somehow from some Staples somewhere or some other retailer, I would just hang tight since I am not sure how you are going to beat the 5102 specs.

The last missing piece of the puzzle is Circuit City and they carry ACERs all the time so you never know if the 5050 is due for their inventory very soon!