Keep or return $500 Acer Aspire 3690-2900?

Not sure if I should keep an Acer Aspire 3690-2900 I managed to pick up for $500, have a couple more days to demo while the return is still good, thought I would ask around if it's a worthwhile laptop at its price.

Looking for basic office software type tasks, Internet, watch video, play music, language learning software, small, light, inexpensive ($500-700) -main reason I bothered to pick this up was the pricetag, would rather not mess about with Vista/happy with XP.

I know I'm being pretty vague, make what you can of it and I'd appreciate the advice.

SPECS (copied from an ebay listing):

Processor
Processor brand
Intel®
Processor type Celeron M
Processor speed 1.6GHz
Bus Speed 533MHz
Level 2 cache 1MB

Memory
RAM 512MB
Memory Type (RAM) 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-4200)
RAM expandable to: 2GB

Storage/Drives

Hard drive size 60GB
DVD/CD-RW Combo

Graphics and sound
Screen size 15.4"
Maximum screen resolution 1280 x 800
Video memory 224MB
Video Memory Type Shared
'Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950'

Ports
USB 2.0 4
FireWire 0
Infrared port No
PC card Yes
Express Card No
S-video Out Yes
Media card slot Yes
VGA Yes
TV tuner No

Internet/networking
Dial-up Modem Included
Ethernet Yes
Wireless 802.11b/g
Bluetooth CAPABLE
Built-in Webcam No
/Thanks.


peace,

 

It is a fine laptop for your uses. The Celeron M should be more than enough fr those purposes. The only drawback is that it lacks Speedstep power saving technology which does not allow the processor to step down the clock speed when idle. So, the battery life depending on the size of the battery wont be very good. Upgrading the RAM to 1GB might be a good option, considering that programs these days are more RAM hungry. But other than that for $500 it is not too bad of a deal.

 

Thanks for the reply, yeah I keep going back and forth on it, basically I bought it figuring I'd most likely be returning it and the two weeks would be an oppurtunity to demo what I'd like/need in a laptop, something to help with researching a purchase.

Don't like the idea of spending $500 on something I didn't look into before hand and I haven't really spent much time with it since I've had it.

Still open to advice.
/Thanks.


peace,

 

I too just purchased an Aspire 3690 but it is running slow with the Vista program - how do I know what type of RAM to install to get it running faster?

 

I also ran a sheet from the acer site to correct some of the slowness problems and it said to eliminate a few of the E-Programs, but not to remove the Framework and E-Recovery management - those aren't even listed - how do I know what I can and can not remove

 

Microcenter is selling the 3690 for $299.

 

The $299 price was a one day special (President's Day Feb 19) and it was limited to 10 units per Micro Center Store as a door buster.