So, is anyone actually happy with their Acer's Quality?

Just bought a 4202wlmi tonight from Comp USA because it was a good price for the specs, and the build quality seemed good to me. I come here, and theres barely a positive post in here, mostly concerning longterm build/reliability. So, is that how the majority of you feel, or is there a silent majority who are overall happy with their laptops?

 

I'm happy with my 3002tw.

 

I ahve had my 4501 wlmi for a year and a half ad still love it!

 

acer aspire 2001 ... 3 years still going strong , even the case still looks new

 

Acer TravelMate 8104 owner here 10 months olds, about 3 or 4 road trips (planes, trains and automobiles) - still Happy

 

I bought an Aspire 3000wlci from CircuitCity a month ago and am extremely satisfied with initial quality, design, etc.. I was almost expecting to be let down quality wise (I'm picky) but it has so far exceeded my expectations. Except for crappy battery life that is.

 

Proud Aspire 5502 owner.

 

Happy Ferrari 4005 owner here

 

Well I think with any forum, the people who post are ones having problems. If your notebook meets all of your expectations then you probably won't post anything.

 

Been very happy with my 5024WLMi.

 

acer has average build quality. But its like everything else as long as you take care of it it will be fine.

 

i think its also luck of the draw. my friend works at a computer store and says the new dual core models they have from acer have keys that are falling off.
..but then again..some people are morons and just want to test it to the max.

 

well if its a display model people like to break them.

 

@gino_lee
You mentioned your friend working in a computer store having dual core models from acer, does these models include the TM8200 or it's just the TM4200 and Aspire models which have dual core which I believe both have inferior built quality against the 8200. If the 8200 is included on display at the store did they start selling it?

 

Exactly what I wanted to say. I've been more than happy with my Acer model. I bought it off ebay in Oct 04 and have been using it without any problems.

It was my travel laptop until in Hong Kong I decided to purchase the Fujitsu laptop and that is my travelling rig now. At home I still prefer using my Acer over the Fujitsu.

Handle your Acer well and it will last a long time.

Tony

 

I've had my 3003wcli for a month and couldn't be happier, other than the battery. The battery is not a quality issue, it is an economy issue. I didn't have super high expectations and I understand that it isn't a super high quality unit. It is a great moderately priced unit that isn't meant to be the be all end all. Like any manufacturer, Acer has some good and some bad. If you would go to other manufacturers forums, people probably complain about them too. Keep your expectations in reality and treat the laptop well and Acer's are going to be good.

 

I love mine - as solid as the ThinkPads and PowerBooks I have owned

 

I am very satisfied with my Acer TravelMate 2303WLMi

 

8200 series should be available by Feb7 in Canada. at least that what the product matrix says. there is a 8200 out tomorrow, Jan31..but i think its french.

 

So far, I'm quite pleased, but it's still early. I have owned my Travelmate 8104 for about 3 months now. The review in PC World was pretty accurate. It feels very solid and well-made, the screen is bright and very sharp with no dead pixels. The keyboard is great to type on, with very good "feel". Now that the battery is broken in, I get about 3 hours per charge out of it with very usable settings for speed and screen brightness for programming work; when I do compute-intensive stuff, I increase the processor speed to the maximum, which does shorten battery life some, of course. The machine is light enough to carry around comfortably, as well, tho I wouldn't buy it if I were a road warrier; I bring it to the interminable swim meets where I sit for 4 hours to watch my kids [who have to sit with the team, not me] swim for 30 seconds; to restaurants and coffee shops, etc. I believe an equivalent-featured laptop would have cost 30+% more thru Dell. Of lesser importance, but still worth mentioning, is that it's a nice looking machine, a lot nicer than much of the competition, IMHO.

My only real complaint is that they shipped the disk formatted as FAT32 instead of NTFS, with screwy partition sizes. It took some fussing to get it re-partitioned and re-formatted as NTFS, mostly because I had never done that stuff before and I encountered problems with PartitionMagic. Now I have a 15GB system partition for WinXP (which might be excessive, I might shrink that after I get more experience with the machine), a 10GB system backup partition (for Ghost images; if I fill the disk, I'll probably eliminate this partition and keep only my DVD backups), and the rest is mine for real files; I blew away the recovery partition it comes with since it's only usable with FAT32 disks.

Acer's support website is nowhere near as well done as what I'm used to (HP's). They don't post driver, bios, and application updates often, if at all, from what I can tell. The 8100 series had been out for maybe 10 months or so before I bought mine, and after some early updates, nothing much new was posted even though the manufacturers had released updates with bug fixes (e.g. Synaptics released a touchpad update that fixed a problem scrolling in Firefox; this still hasn't made it onto their site after a number of months). Even the BIOS on their website is old: the version on my machine is much newer than what they have posted.

Nonetheless, if the machine keeps working like it is now (I'm wary of the fact that roughly 20% of all laptops have to be repaired at some point; this figure holds across all the major manufacturers, as well, not just Acer), I'll continue to recommend Acer.

 

Do any of you have heat issues with acer?

 

What is your definition of "heat issues". I think it is fairly well documented that some Acer models run on the warm side. I know mine does, but it isn't uncomfortable when on my lap. It hasn't affected the useabilty or caused problems with the machine. So my answer would be no.

 

I would have to say "yes".
My 5672 has really surprised me with the heat under the touchpad, and on the wrist rest areas. It actually runs pleasantly cool for the processor, and there is very little fan noise which is good.
But after a few hours using Photoshop or similiar I can barely touch the touchpad, it gets so hot. My previous Compaq is cool as ice in those areas. So, poor design? I guess so.

 

Agree with you, I have my TM291LCi for last 2yr 2 months and never had problem so never visited any forum. But suddenly I found this forum and it seems interesting.
BTW I am also another happy acer customer.
Atindra

 

Mine never gets hot unless I play games all day on it.

The fan vents out the left side so I never notice it unless I put something next to the vent. I think the thermal engineering on the Ferrari is good considering what is inside.

 

I've been using my TM8202 for two and a half weeks now and it's great but I do have a few complaints. I thought the vent on the right side wouldn't matter but it does, it's very unpleasant but i fixed it with a piece of cardboard i stick under the laptop which deflects the hot air.

The other disapointment is the quality of the sound. It's useless without an external amplifier. My old Toshiba A25 sounds way far better.

Yet i love this laptop. The overall performance is excellent and everyone says it looks very good. I don't think it'd break anytime soon, it really is solid and light-ish.

 

I think in general the opinions expressed here are indicating Acer has good build quality for the price what they are sold for. I think not many will disagree with it. On the other hands from the complaints expressed here shows that Acer's different units has different set of weaknesses and they are not generalized.
This forum is huge treasure of info and knowledge.
Atindra