Acer and Asus comparison needed

Hi, I'm having a difficult time in choosing a laptop for myself. I am contemplating purchasing an Acer 5680-6123 notebook. I haven't been able to find any benchmarks or solid reviews on the acer. According to the specs, it seems like a real performer. One of the things that I am concerned about is this laptops build quality. Although the price of this laptop is reasonable its still a lot money to fork out; therefore, I do intend to keep whatever laptop I buy for awhile. Having said that, I've also looked at purchasing an 14.1" Asus Aj8s because Asus is known to have good quality laptops. I am more concerned with peformance of the laptop than I am with the size of it; therefore, I would appreciate any advice any one has for me concerning any of these 2 laptops.

Does Aj8s come with bluetooth?

 

Asus = great build quality, even in the budget/mainstream A8 series

Acer = cheap, budget build quality.

You can get a decent component system from Acer (after all, cpu is cpu and gpu is gpu regardless of who assembles the final product) that will likely perform well for you, but you will get what you paid for in the chassis and construction. Keep in mind, *nobody* here in the Asus forum is going to recommend an Acer model over Asus

 

Here's a review on the Acer 5680

Here's a review on the Asus A8js

Well your comparing two closely matched performance laptops, that's for sure, but the Acer is a 15.4" notebook, if your going to consider 15.4" notebooks then look to the Asus G1 and V1JP.

When looking at the 14" high performance notebook, nothing really competes with the A8js, it is equipped with a Go 7700 512mb which is better than a Go 7600, also the A8js is more portable than a 15.4" notebook.

 

Just to add, when looking at the price, your range can basicaly accomodate many laptops, I suggest you should fill out the FAQ so that we can help narrow what your wants are, other than wanting the best performance.

We would need to know other things like screen size, price range, and what you will be using the notebook for and other specific details which can be found in the FAQ.

 

Asus and Acer are both quite good, but i will lean towards Asus for its ODM status and better build quality/ 2years warranty standard.

 

I like the acer travelmates.

The acer aspires are about the cheapest things out there.

 

Well, trying to be as objective as possible... I think Acer has a few decent machines. Their Travelmate line, as stamar mentioned are pretty decent. They're probably about as good as the Asus A series, if not slightly better than a few of them (the A8 is probably as good as the A series gets). The Acer Ferrari line is also pretty good too.. but much more expensive.

If you're going to get an Acer.. make it a travelmate. Otherwise, stick with a good Asus machine; The A8 is pretty good, but the W and V series are very well built machines.

 

Not to say these arent comparable machines because they are.

They are both plastic bodied grey and silver. Both small really.

You can see the acer or one like it in a retail store. You could literally poke your finger through it.

Theres plastic and theres plastic and I dont know how I describe the material difference.
The 5672 is extremely hot I dont know if the 5680 is similar. a8js runs extremely cool.

 

Thanks for the feedback. The thing that concerns me with the Aj8s is the grainy screen they say that they are having a problem with. I will abuse this computer so I believe Acer is out of the question.

 

Grainy screen is fixed with a BIOS update. Acer has nothing like the ASUS build quality - trust me. Don't get an ACER, get the ASUS

I had the same questions and concerns...here's the thread I was discussing it in back when I did my own Asus vs. Acer thread.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=73807

Cat

 

I've owned both the Acer AS5672 and ASUS W3J. Here are my thoughts for what it's worth ..

Performance-wise, both laptops are great. The Acer (with similar specs as the W3J) was just as fast, very responsive. Both screens look great, I'd say the Acer was slightly brighter. Another thing I loved about the Acer was all the bells and whistles ! Bluetooth, DVI, Webcam, SD reader .. it's just loaded.

You'll notice I use the past tense above, thats because after 3 months I returned the 5672 (God bless Costco ) and bought my W3J. Why did I return it ? BUILD QUALITY .. or the lack-there-of.

Now if you're just gonna keep this notebook at home all day, build quality is most likely a non-issue. In my case however, I carry it everywhere I go. After about a month the dead pixels started to show up .. I thought it's just a lemon, I'll return it .. So I get my second 5672 and the same thing happens: dead pixels.

I also noticed that the body scratched very easily .. this isn't a huge issue .. just aesthetics really.

The reason I chose the W3J was for it's performance and, more importantly, build quality .. The A series isn't as sturdy as the W's, but from what I've read, it's definitely better than the 5672.

BTW, the 5680 is the C2D version of the 5672.

If you're going to go with an Acer, check out the travelmates. The curvey keyboard might look a little weird, but those travelmates are much better machines. Check out the TM8000s series.

Hope this helps ! Cheers.

 

Don't get a Travelmate 8204, I did a lot of research on that...I almost bought one instead of the Z96J because their performance back in September was just about the best on the market. But they are not built nicely at all. I played around with 5 of them at my work today wiping their HDDs and a couple were ok, the other 3 were really crummy in terms of build quality, feeling more flimsy. They also have some broken things, like TV out and some other parts - the quality one to the other is very very different, some get just about the best laptops on the market...others get worthless garbage. Thats the sort of thing I get when I buy cables and things at the dollar store, but you can't buy a spare of a $2200 laptop just incase the first one is bad.... Just my two cents along with about 7 days of research and 2 days of experience with the Acer machines..

Good luck though,
Cat

 

I currently have an Acer Travelmate 800 and it's soon to be four years old. It still works o.k. However the build quality isn't very good. The second month I had it the LCD fram developed a crack and it had never left my desk. It has exhibited a wide varity of strange behavior (screen going blank, turning off by itself, refusing to start up), most of it was self correcting.

However after checking out a couple of Acers at local stores I decided to go with an Asus G1. Acers build quality just seems to flimsy, almost worse then Dell.

 

Build quality on acers is below average. I would rate them well below asus. hell even HP and dell are better built than acer. I even owned the acer 8100 series i think it was for a week. for their top end machine at the time it was junk. the specs are good for the price. But i wouldnt trust them for long term. I have two friends with different model acers one has had the Motherboard replaced three times. the other one had the motherboard replaced once. so while im sure thats not the case with everyone asus is the way to go.