Where did all of you 8204 owners with the good build dates order from???

I will be ordering the Acer Travelmate 8204 ASAP and I need to know where all of you with the build dates of 04/06 and later bought your laptops from. I don't want a build date before that for obvious reasons. I would greatly appreciate this. Thank you.

 

a) Where you buy the machine from has absolutely *zero* effect on what build date(s) you get. All of these retailers - online and offline - get their stock from the same handful of distributors, who in turn get them all from the same supply from Acer. You might be lucky and get a machine that shot straight through that system in a matter of days, or you might get unlucky and get a machine that got shoved on the back of a stock shelf for weeks at the distributor.

b) The build date also has essentially nothing to do with most of these "problems" anyway.

 

Although that may be the case, just for my own personal satisfaction, can you please tell me where you ordered your 8204 from and what build date you got?

 

Couldn't agree more. Acer would have sold 10's of thousands of these by now, and you're basing everything on a handful of internet whinings from disgruntled users, be it warranted or not. Unless someone can show me a photo of an 8204 component clearly showing in incremented design revision, I'll stick to the assertion that nothing has ever changed with components in this machine.

 

Mine is an 0601 BTW, only problem is low headphone output volume, which is an inherent characteristic of the cheapo Realtek chipset in the 8204, inconsequential with a decent pair of USB headphones though.

 

gweilo8888 and Travel Matey are exactly right - nothing has been shown to prove that any "problems" were rampant, and subsequently "corrected" with later builds; and if there had been, it's all chance as to what "build date" you get from any given retailer. OTOH, if you buy later (i.e. now), you'll probably get a later build - common sense.

 

I can think of two things off the top of my head - the crummy LCD and the slower memory - that have been changed in more recent builds, so I wouldn't say there aren't consistent problems with the older ones. I'm planning on buying this machine, and for $2400 CDN, I'm going to want the advertised RAM frequency and the brighter LCD without serious banding problems - it's simply not true that there's no difference, because they've swapped out two important parts for better ones since about March.

 

Like almost any notebook computer (or complex piece of electronic equipment, for that matter), there's no guarantee as to the exact specification of components that will be used - they choose whatever gives the best value at the time the notebook is built.

Unless you work on the production line, you have no way of knowing what components are used, and whether Acer has stopped using any particular component. There's every chance that if you buy a notebook made this week, it will include the exact same LCD and memory that were supposedly an issue in older models...

You'll note that *most* folks reported having no problems with their 8204s, or only minor problems fixed with driver updates. Thing is, those folks don't go out of their way to post about their experiences, unlike the folks who hunt for problems so miniscule they can't even tell if there's a problem without making up special tests to try and find them - and then act as if those problems are somehow showstoppers.

 

In short

You buy it (if you like it and understand the delivery, return and warranty conditions)
You test it thoroughly with special attention to anything mentioned here
And you simply retunr it within the given period (be it 360, 30, 7 or 3 days) if it isn't according to your expectations (with regard to delivery/return/warranty conditions). Just make sure you understand the return policy!
And you don't moan about it without giving the opponent (supplier or Acer) the opportunity (at least notice and some time) to express their views.

After that you can rubbish them (even without being afraid of a defamation lawyer nocking at your dooor the next day)
But I guess that's a bit too much of an ideal picture.

cheers

Drio

phew, I guess I got carried away, nothing personal I guarantee!