Posted January 3, 200718 yr I am starting to not like them. I have worked on 2 Acer Aspire laptops in the past week, they come bundled with so much crap, it is unreal. They have the hard drive split in 2 partitions, which is not a bad thing, except that the people that owned the 2 that I worked on, would not know that they had a second partition that they could use to make their life easier, instead they would probably fill up the C partition and wonder what they do next for more space. If they were more clued up they could do the sensible thing and use the C partition for apps and the D partition for storage. I also don't understand why Acer are still formatting using FAT32 instead of NTFS.
April 5, 200718 yr Author Might be doing an about turn on the above statement, my son has found one he likes and asked my opinion, I have been in two minds since he asked, finally I told him he has to decide because I don't want the blame if I say go for it and it turns out to be crap or vice versa. Turns out he had already decided to go for it anyway. It is going to cost £500. Features & Specifications - AMD Mobile Turion 64 MK-36 Processor - 2 GHz HyperTransport - 512 KB Cache - 1 GB RAM - 80 GB Hard Drive - DVD ReWriter MultiDrive - 17" Widescreen Display - Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium - 128 MB nVidia Geforce Go 5100 Graphics - 1 Year Free Warranty - Built in Web Cam Processor Type AMD Mobile Turion 64 MK36 Processor speed 2 mhz Memory Size 2 x 512 mb Memory Type DDR II Hard Drive Capacity 80 Gb Optical Drives 8 x DVD Supermulti CD-ROM Speed 24 x CD-RW Speed. 24 x DVD-ROM Speed 8 x DVD-RW Speed 8 x Screen Size/Type 17.0" WXGA+ TFT Graphics Card Type NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Graphics Memory 128mb mb TV-out Yes Sound Type High Definition Audio Support Modem Type 56kbps Wireless Enabled Yes No. of USB Connections 4 Other Interfaces 5 in 1, S/PDIF Battery Type Li-Ion Battery life (up to) 2.0 hours Operating system Windows Vista Home Premium Weight 3.68 kg Height 31.4 mm Width 400 mm Depth 295 mm Colour Silver/Black
April 5, 200718 yr I hate computers bundled with lots of junk software. FAT32 might be due to backwards-compatibility or something. Does not HP have the best laptops? I don't know, they seem famous. :cake:
April 5, 200718 yr Author I'll get rid of most of the junk software, not sure what to do about the FAT32 issue though, I don't want to lose the recovery partition.
April 7, 200718 yr Author My son bought the laptop today, it still has two partitions, he is ok with that though, he said he will use the second one just for storage (music, images, ect). What was a pleasant surprise is that it has been formatted using NTFS rather than FAT 32. Only junk software on it was Norton, which had been installed but not activated, upon activating it errors started appearing, parts of it would not load and so on and so forth. Needless to say, it went. He was under the impression that it was slowing his gaming down as well.
April 8, 200718 yr I'm thinking of getting an Acer as well. Just gonna delete loads of crap that it comes with, then it should be good. Apparently it comes with some cool software for clocking your processor.
April 8, 200718 yr Author So you never got one back in January when you first started talking about it then. Get down to PC World tomorrow and pick up an Easter bargain.
April 8, 200718 yr I'm thinking of getting an Acer as well. Just gonna delete loads of crap that it comes with, then it should be good. Apparently it comes with some cool software for clocking your processor. In my opinion, that it comes with some cool software is not a reason good enough to consider one manufacturer. Comes with overclocking software? Sounds like a really dumb idea, I can imagine tons of noobs overclock it to max and break it, and send it on for repair, that must cost them a lot. Overclocking is not something for Joe Sixpack. Overclocking software should display a warning label at installation, that says "kids don't try this at home". :cake:
April 9, 200718 yr I know what you mean, but it still sounds cool. No, I never got one, low on money. http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/product.do?sku=373249 Isn't that better though?
April 9, 200718 yr I like that its pretty cheap. If possible, I would try get one with Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion. I don't think Pentium is so good... The Acer one has a smaller disk, but it has more bigger screen and AMD Turion CPU.
August 26, 200717 yr Author One of the laptops that I have mentioned in the first post of this thread has now been back to Acer so many times, it is unreal, looks like it is sorted now though, had a dodgy hard drive connection on the motherboard. Despite everythng I have said about Acer's, I went and bought one yesterday, it is not brilliant but it will do as a 4th computer at home, we so desperately needed another computer, but I neither had the space for a good desktop or the money for a good laptop, so when an Acer came on sale for £299, I just went for it. It seems ok, just as long as it does not develop any faults.
August 26, 200717 yr So you would say, thy are good, or not? Simply because I'm thinking of buying one. I know it comes bundled with loads of crap, I'm just going to get rid of it all.
August 26, 200717 yr Author I would have to wait a few more days to be able to answer that truthfully, at the moment I am still getting it the way I like it. I have put all the security apps on and all the must have software, and got all the windows updates, but now I just need to put other less essential apps on and give it a defrag. Oh, and I need to see if there are any start up items that can be stopped. The only crap on it was Norton (trial obviously), and Microsoft Office 2007 (trial again). I'll post back in a couple of days once I have had some real usage from it, if I get to use it that is, it is mainly for my daughter to use.
August 26, 200717 yr Administrator Many OEMs now let you simply request the omission of the craplets that come preinstalled.
August 27, 200717 yr Author Yeah I know, but this laptop was off the shelf. I saw it on tv Thursday night, thought about it throughout Friday, reserved one online Saturday morning, then went and collected it Saturday afternoon.
August 27, 200717 yr http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire...2/version-1.asp This is what I'm thinking of getting. Shame it doens't include a Vista disk.
August 27, 200717 yr Administrator Just read that Acer is going to acquire Gateway in a $710 million dollar deal.
August 30, 200717 yr Just read that Acer is going to acquire Gateway in a $710 million dollar deal. Moreover, Packard Bell could become a part of Acer too . That good or bad Thoughts on my laptop? Not even HP will give you a DVD with the laptop. When you buy the laptop just make sure you have a DVD-/+R by hand to burn the restore disc. The laptop you picked is an older model now; a Core 2 CPU would do way better then the Core Duo...
August 30, 200717 yr Administrator Yeah I recently saw that about Packard Bell too. Gateway gave me a package of 6 CDs to burn my recovery media. I called them and told them I didn't get a DVD to burn it and they sent more CDs.
August 30, 200717 yr Gateway gave me a package of 6 CDs to burn my recovery media. I called them and told them I didn't get a DVD to burn it and they sent more CDs. How crazy can they be...
August 30, 200717 yr Administrator It's pretty bad when you call them for support and wind up discovering a fix before they tell you how to fix a problem. I had a Windows ME machine that would lose the My Docs icon and a few other icons. My Docs wouldn't open properly through the Start Menu, etc. Just had to re-register the MyDocs.dll to fix it. I hope Acer support will be better and smarter.
August 31, 200717 yr Not even HP will give you a DVD with the laptop. When you buy the laptop just make sure you have a DVD-/+R by hand to burn the restore disc. The laptop you picked is an older model now; a Core 2 CPU would do way better then the Core Duo... What would you suggest for 500?
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