NEWS : Acer makes the shoddiest laptops, according to IT professionals

Acer makes the shoddiest laptops, according to IT professionals | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

 

Personally i have had loads of acer notebook, I have one now and find the build quality great.

 

I find that hard to believe,why so much hate for the acer.............

 

My Aspire5610z going strong after 3yrs except the screen dimming due to ccfl aging. I have no desire to replace my laptop and get myself a new screen for X'mas.

 

I loved my Acer 5920g. Only problems I had with it was the 8600m GT that died after 10 months but that was not Acer's fault.

 

Same here, I wonder where they're getting data from unless we're all part of the minority...

 

Ive had a few acers too and the build quality is just fine. Not the best but no where near the worst either. The HP consumer line would probably be the worst in my books

Maybe techrepublic just had bad tech support and having a rage over the internet.

 

My stepdads Acer Aspire 7520G died again.
But i blame the craptastic Nvidia motherboard and the now replaced Geforce 8400m G.
Nvidia seems to design inferior AMD compatible motherboards. xD

 

Hmm, personally I think Acer has the best budget laptops. I just got an 1830TZ and to me, the thing seems to be built really well.

 

i think acer just recently improved in the quality of their laptops with the release of their current timeline notebooks. however, from the "feel" that i got of acer from past comments on the internet, having seen their notebooks, and having heard of experiences from friends, both a friend and i also considered acer to produce the lowest quality notebooks, with hp's consumer notebooks being in the same category

ps. i cant find the link to the article

 

Just for you, because your special, it`s at the very top of the screen post 1, open your eyes

Acer makes the shoddiest laptops, according to IT professionals | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

 

ahh, sorry about that, i couldnt tell it was a link

anyway, im a little surprised that hp and even dell are above lenovo in this poll

 

The study summarized here corroborates the finding that Acer laptops malfunction frequently.

 

The finding by OP claimed that Acer laptops are the worst, not that they mulfunction frequently. I have to agree with Brawn. From reading other people's ranting, Acer used to be a bad quality brand in general. I also feel that they somewhat improve the quality, probably beginning around the time they bought Gateway and started to expand in Europe mostly.

 

lol that's a fact... in my mum's office, every person's acer hasn't lasted more than a year... IMO, acer one of the shoddiest brands.. and its seems to be enforced even more in UK considering how cheap and trashy their laptops come although their new timelineX series seems to buck the trend..

lenovo has ruined the thinkpad.. and really i'm not suprised by their result.

 

ahh, i had a feeling that was the case, but there still seems to be a lot of positive comments about lenovo's thinkpads and their reliability on these forums

 

got alots of Acers kicking around, only issue I have had with them the last 3 years was the bloatware and that can be fixed by a reformat and clean load.

I would have said the consumer grade HP's were the worst as well as I have mountains of them here for spare parts and to go hit the recyclers

 

I've had a 5610z and a 3680-2682 from Acer, and both are still going just as strong as when I bought them. The 3680 has even had several heart transplants, M440-->T2060-->T5500. Personally I wouldn't trade them for anything. Although, I, and everyone I know, skipped over the "Gemstone" series and went straight to the Timeline's. Great quality IMO.

 

Im sorry your in the UK,that explains it,they must send all the good ones to the USA......my bad..............

 

Yes,you're absolutely right,we brits accept any junk from China gleefully.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_(ship)

 

Corporate IT departments go beyond just looking at the most reliable laptops. They're also looking for laptops that are the easiest to disassemble and clean. You have no idea how many of my colleagues drop food, liquids, etc., on their laptops.

One mergers & acquisitions analyst I knew even used her DVD drive as a coffee cup holder in a pinch. No joke. She was sexy and hot, but dumb as a doornail (rumor had it she blew the hiring manager to get a spot on the team). With the stories she told about her weekends, I believe it....

 

Acer is the Hyundai of laptops. Both used to be complete crap, but management finally got serious about turning things around and being competitive. While both are not at the top of their respective leagues, they are aggressively pursuing that goal by offering tremendous value at a competitive/aggressive price.

If the Hyundai Genesis were made by BMW or Mercedes at its current price, EVERYONE would be scrambling to buy one. But they're not simply because there's a Hyundai badge on the car.....

 

Would I be metaphorically poking the hibernating bear if, instead of talking about how Acer is potentially the shoddiest of all laptop brands, I would ask what is the best of all laptop brands?

Mr. Mysterious

 

Panasonic specifically the fully rugged. less than 3% fail over 3 years, and I maintain roughly 400 of them, in 6 years 11 have needed major repairs. of those 6 were due to complete stupidity such as falling off a truck roof at 100kph and cracking the touchscreen.
the rest wound up with things like RAM, HDD or WWAN upgrades or something software related.

now if you mean best for gaming or video rendering... well them aint gonna cut it.

 

i've had horrible experience with acer so far. their so called "business" notebooks the travelmates are barely as well built as a dell or hp consumer notebook.

have had good experience with dell's business models and hp's.

ah- and my girlfriend's university supplied acer laptops for a year, but the failure rate was so high they switched to fujitsu. they used to use thinkpads before they used acer.

 

Hey wait a minute,doesnt the royal family use acer laptops,then they cant be all that bad.......right........................

 

I didn't know they have laptops in Eastern Oklahoma. LOL j/k. But in reality, it does seem like Acer is more famous in the UK (and Europe), even when the brand was considered junk here in the U.S. Most likely because of their cheaper price.

 

I miss my Acer 1410 netbook. I regret selling it. It was a top notch netbook. Since you can't buy them with dual cores any more, or cheap, I settled for the HannsBook which, in itself, is quite spectacular. Just a little heavier than I'd like.

 

thats because acer and dell, (also emachines and packard bell in the past) are the only reasonably priced vendors in the uk...the other brands are ridiculously more expensive here.

 

Never read a more true opinion. Everyone that's bickering about US/UK superiority needs to read this.

 

I wish these reviews broke down by specific laptop model since that would be much more useful (albeit more expensive). I'm pretty sure most people here would agree that the higher end business notebook models such as the Dell Latitude/Precision, Lenovo X/T/W, and HP Elitebook lines are much better than consumer model lines. Also, certain companies design specific notebooks for rugged environments, so they should definitely have a higher reliability, such as in the case of Panasonic's Toughbooks. While I would definitely say that Acer is not at the level of the business notebooks listed above, I would also say that compared to other consumer lines, they are better than most.

 

I always thought Acer was a decent brand...my friend's 6930G has taken an absolute beating, and it still runs, holds together, and doesn't really look bad for how bad he treats it. And it's one of those "Gemstone" notebooks that everyone made a big fuss about.

 

I have an Acer 1410T and an 1810TZ and I am contemplating of getting a 3820TG for family use.I am so happy that is certain that my next notebook will be an Acer.In the past we use to have HP's in the family.Nothing but little nagging problems so much so that we never developed a brand loyalty for HP.I quess a lot has to do with different experiences that each one of us has with different brands,experiences that can vary a lot.

 

I owned an Acer Aspire 5740G and it was built pretty well. I had no problems with it except for a few minor driver problems. Now, I own an Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG and I think the build quality is even better. It's no Elitebook or MBP, but the build quality seems much better than most budget, consumer laptops.

I have to admit that Acer had some pretty horrible laptops back in the day and that is why people associate them with bad build quality. However, Acer has improved their laptop quality ever since they came out with the "Gemstone" design.

 

yup, i was very impressed with my first dell xps that when it came time to get a replacement.. i got another of the exact same model.. boy was that a bad idea, it was completely different than the first one and the only difference was that the first one had integrated graphics while the second one had dedicated.. plus bluetooth and a few different components

that laptop's battery life was nearly half of the original one, ran way hotter, gpu would throttle and eventually died (probably not enough thermal paste, as it turns out that it was a common problem), and it was a MUCH heavier despite only a few component changes..

i also got a spare 9 cell battery, and i ended up having to use it because the original 9 cell battery was already half dead fresh out of the box... and dell wouldn't replace it.. they said that it's normal for batteries to deteriorate.. NO DELL, NOT IF IT CAN ONLY POWER MY LAPTOP FOR LESS THAN 1.5 HOURS WHILE MY 1.5 YEAR OLD IDENTICAL BATTERY PLACED IN THE SAME LAPTOP LASTS FOR 3+ HOURS [/end_rant]

i've also had a bad experience with sony customer service, i don't know where else to turn.. maybe lenovo has better service.. or hp?

 

Acer has a bad reputation mainly because of some bad models they released 3 to 5 years ago under the Aspire name. Since then their quality has gone up and now it's comparable to Dell, HP and other consumer laptops.

 

i dont know about that, the travelmates that were failing en-masse i was referring to were the ones from 2008, and the gemstone that's giving me problems was from july 2009.

on the other hand, the inspiron 1525 and inspiron 1545 hasnt given us any problems at all

 

I really dont feel acer laptop quality to be that great.They seem chepo.My m1330 has FAR FAR better quality than it

 

I have had loads of brands of notebook and the only ones i have had problems with were a Sony , the E key squeaked from new and for 2 weeks until i returned it and the left touchpad button did not work, even in dos, so i turned the notebook over and tap the area behind the button and it started working.

The HP i had the screen had vertical lines on the screen and they were prominent on certain colours, I had 2 replacements in and they all had the same problem.

 

My gemstone was purchased around 3 years ago it definitely had much better build quality than my roommates M1530 (which he got rid of in lieu for the sXPS16).

 

I love my Acer 6935G's build

BTW, I know someone who almost owned all the latest Acer notebooks lol!.. He purchases them and use them for months before selling it of and purchasing another.. I can't imagine how much he love's them Acer notebooks.

To me Acer is the best value for money..

 

One of the problems is that Acer is one of the biggest brands, iirc it is currently second in laptop sales, so more computer illiterate people buy Acer laptops. This leads to more problems with the laptops because the people that buy them don't know how to take care of them. I had a 4730z for a while and had no problems with it, personally. I would rank Acer ahead of Dell in reliability in my personal experience

 

the issues with acer laptops are not software problems,therefore cant be attributed to new users having issues. even someone who's completely computer illiterate isnt going to throw their laptop around or use it while in the shower lol.

so it dosent explain the high failure rate of the hardware. in my case, the university ordered around 3,000 units for their students, and within a year the failure rate was around 20%, compared with the previous years using thinkpads the failure rate was less than 1% and a similar rate for the fujitsu's they are now using.

20% is a really high rate

 

I think you may have been unlucky. The Gemstone was an improvement over this Aspire series.

 

I had one of these my first Acer, a few years ago now in the photo, the build quailty was rubbish and it ran hot with an AMD cpu, the Acer build quality now is much better.

 

the new acers definitely have better quality than the ones mentioned, but i still dont think its up to the mark. and has anyone tried to open a gemstone up to clean out the fan? Its a massive headache. just to access the fan requires complete disassembly of the chassis. a real nightmare for maintainence

 

Not so on the Gemstone Blue series like mine.
All I need to turn are six screws and pop out the bottom panel, and I've got access to fan, CPU and GPU heatsinks, RAM, and hard drive.

 

it is part of the gemstone blue series. its the 14" aspire 4937G

Acer Aspire 4937G JohnDiew0107

same model as in this link, but higher specced HDD and processor

 

Disassembly of my Gemstone Blue is a snap. I take it apart to clean monthly.

 

They are not going to do things that obvious but they will neglect to clean dust out of vents, which leads to overheating, which leads to hardware problems.