End of a Love Affair with Acer September 12, 2007
Posted by Carthik in Friends Etc., reviews, ubuntu.trackback
I was in love with Acer laptops. I bought my first one, an Acer Travelmate 290 LMi in my second year of grad school. I did pay ~ $1200 for it, but it was awesome, right until the moment there were errors with the hard disk controllers about 3 years later. When I sold it for parts on ebay, it still retained more than 3 hours worth of charge in it’s battery. The finish and the quality of parts spoke loud and clear. I liked the simple looks, the ruggedness, and above all, the dependability.
So when I had to find a replacement, and was short on time and money, I settled for another Acer. An Acer Aspire 5003 LMi. Piece of junk. The plastic looks cheap. The “Aluminum” next to the keyboard is poorly spray painted plastic. The area next to the touchpad, and the left-click button have lost all their paint due to repeated use, and then look white. All within a year. For the last few days, occasionally, I would open up the laptop, and the display wouldn’t work properly. Loud cracks can be heard at the hinges when I open it up. I’d usually fix the display problem by opening the lid to an angle where the display worked. Today it failed completely. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the display to display anything coherent. The quality of the parts, and the “casing”, is terrible. I admit, this was a cheap laptop, but it had what I needed at a minimum. I am not someone who buys the cheapest thing around. I buy computers with exactly the minimum I need. This one has a Broadcom wireless card, but I thought I could live with that for a bit. I don’t need a separate video card – I never play games. I do need a large screen, and a DVD-burner – well, you get the point. I would have gladly paid $250 more to Acer for the same laptop with better quality.
Personally, I have vouched for Acer laptops, and have directly influenced my friends into buying at least 3-4 Acers. Now I feel like an idiot. I have to try something new. I don’t like how ThinkPads are designed with the recessed screen and clunky looks and all. The Sony Vaios I have known through friends and others have all been terrible – each of them making the trip back to Sony at least once. That leave the glitzy HPs and the Dells. I’d rather have a MacBook or the Pro, which looks infinitely cooler. Wish I had the money for a new MacBookPro. It has way more features and power than I need, though. Anyways, I feel much better having written this – may those that I recommended Acers to find it in them to forgive me!
Ubuntu Blog 
No luck you don’t like Thinkpads, they’re the best laptops I’ve ever used.
Same happened to me.
Bought an Acer laptop, but it’s a piece of junk. When I started habing cooling problems, I decided to take a look at the cpu, and the fan.
The thing was the assemblers used the wrongs screws to screw the cooler plate to the cpu!! They were too small, so the plate got eventually loose!
It’s unbelieveable.
Definitively, the Thinkpads won’t win a dessign contest, but I wouldn’t change my R50e for any of the other laptops in my company. It’s the tougher and most productive of all them.
Acer, as you have discovered, are pure shit. Dell and HP are quite better but you have to buy a high end one to get relative quality.
Thinkpads, at least until Lenovo bought the brand, are ugly but well build.
When mine dies, or when I earn enough money, I sure will look for a new Thinkpad.
Maybe I should try a Thinkpad sometime – overlooking the looks. It really doesn’t matter how good something looks, but design just makes it easier to love things.
I have to say that Thinkpads are very well built laptops. The best that I’ve used. The looks are ok, but the components rock. I have a Dell D620 issued to me at work and I would definitely trade it for a nice Thinkpad. I’ve also used HP/Compaq. I bought my wife a T42 Thinkpad 3 years ago and it’s still working perfectly. She has gotten food particles stuck in the keyboard and they replaced the keyboard for no charge this past summer. I didn’t even buy an extended warranty. The titanium hinges on the Thinkpad alone make the feel of the laptop more sturdy and rugged. I think you might want to check out a friends Thinkpad to see what I mean.
Ditto with the Thinkpads. My T40 is well into its fifth year, and is still going strong. The battery life is awesome, and IBMs service is still top of the line, as I discovered when the charging plug broke some months ago (I tripped over the cable one time too many…)
Actually, in the last three months my wife has had more hardware problems with her brand new Powerbook than I have with my Thinkpad. And the Mac is much larger and heavier, not to mention hotter. And lacks the Trackpoint and the Thinklight. But it looks better, I’ll grant it that. 😉
Wow, looks like I have wandered into a grove of Thinkpad lovers 🙂
Totally agree with all praises about ThinkPad. 4 years ago iwas been thinking about buying a cheap but new laptop from “no-name” company and thanks god I decided to buy refurbished T23. Nowadays it’s almost 7 year after it has been built and it’s working just fine. My friend bought Acer (full featured, don’t know model) and after 1 year hinges teared up from the top cover. It looked soo ugly (and the laptop was broken nonetheless ;).
The next thing in thinkpad is the keyboard. I just love it! I was looking at MB and MBPro and the keyboard just doesn’t feel right for me.
My next laptop (don’t know when, because this old is working for me great) will be surely thinkpad.
If you wanna go for Apple (which i reccomend) – don’t go for the Pro. It has an ATi chip inside. I know they’re opening and all, but ive had both of my ATi chips fail on me. Non-pro Macbooks have a Intel 950 chip inside – which may not be good for games, but Compiz rocks on and just about any opensource game works very nicely. The wireless is Atheros (which works perfectly with Madiwif, although SVN) and the camera works too (perfect for Skype if theyre gonna ever gonna support webcams under Linux).
If you want quality, choose a ThinkPad. I own a G40 from 2004 and I’m very happy with it. I’ve used T42s and T60s at work and they are built like tanks.
A friend of mine is looking for a new laptop these days and I recommended her a ThinkPad T61. It turns out that Lenovo have quite a sale in the US right now ending September 17.
I personally have an Acer Aspire 5610Z, which I have from eight months or so. I’ve run several linux flavours, and several power-hungry apps, and it works like a charm. I haven’t had any problems with it (except I cannot convince linux to use the multimedia buttons whatsoever). Otherwise, I’m quite happy with it, even the price was good – ~ $900 for this beauty (without any proprietary OS, thank you). The hardware is fully supported on Linux, even the Atheros Wi-Fi works like a charm. The casing is very robust and good-looking, and the display works great. Overall, I think I struck a very good deal. I admit it heats a little in the summer, but with temperatures around 40C, it’s not that unexpected, I guess.. It never overheated, though.
Dell laptops are my favorites. I’ve always had good luck with them. I had an old CPI Pentium II for the longest time and have just now upgraded to an Inspiron 1501. It did get hit by lightning (no surge protector), but Dell repaired it and got it back to me pretty quickly for no extra charge.
No one’s suggested System 76 yet? I have a Darter (which I understand is also the base for some model of Asus), and it’s my daily driver at work — much more enjoyable than the company-issued Dell D620, being able to reliably forward X apps instead of using VNC is nice too.
I was wondering the same thing. Anyone else been happy with S76? My next laptop may come from them.
Just figured I’d agree with the people pushing Lenovo’s hardware. The looks suck, but in terms of reliability and power, I’ve never found anything better. Well, actually that’s not true. Apple’s hardware has been phenomenally resilient for me (I still own a powermac from 6 years ago). Lenovo and Mac are both a bit more expensive, but worth it if you want the endurance.
ASUS. They are currently my laptop of choice, but for my own linux installs and family members and windows.
Try them. So far I’m still very impressed and most of the models work great with linux out of the box. Check out the prices on newegg.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with my HP Pavilion dv6450. Everything worked out of the box on Feisty–including the webcam and the SD card reader. Compiz Fusion runs wonderfully. Battery life isn’t fantastic, but the laptop spends most of its time plugged in. Definitely worth a look.
I’m currently on my second Acer laptop. My first one lasted me well over 3 years and is still running now – my partner uses it. I’ve just purchased a new Acer Aspire 5630 and so far I’ve been quite impressed with it. It works well with Ubuntu and the built in wireless uses an Intel chipset, so I’ve had no problems with that either. Admittedly the build quality feels a bit cheap but as long as the screen stays attached [touching wood] I’m hoping it’ll last me for a good number of years.
Dells are good machines if you just get the main business line — the Latitude’s. The price is medium, but they are hard to destroy and cheap to fix. They still come with a 3-year warranty.
All of Dell’s other products, Inspiron/Vostro/XPS are not high-quality. Dell knows they are junk (even expensive junk) so they only get 90 days to 1 year of coverage.
Apple, !Apple!, are you joking? They are not rugged at all. The lack of a screen gap means that the keyboard can rub on the screen. They are medium build quality for a high price.
If you can’t take the all-black of a Lenovo ThinkPad, go with ColorwarePC. For an extra $400 you get any col or you want.
http://www.colorwarepc.com/products/select_t61.aspx
Get Ubuntu brown (they call it “Blaze”):
The Travelmate series is better than the others. However the quality of Acer’s laptop in the last 4 years decrease a lot for my experience. My girlfriend is very happy with her Macbook. The keyboard is weird at the beginning but It works perfectly.
Yup – looks like Acer’s quality department is taking a nap.
I’m another Acer Aspire 5003wmli victim… errrr user.
I have a love-hate relationship with it.
I love how it looks. It’s very appealing to the eye, people use to say “wow, what a nice laptop!”. But its materials are terrible. It’s all plastic, You have to grab it with a silk glove and treat it like an egg because you think all the time that it will break. And it will.
I’ve send it to repair after a couple of months of use because the lid broke by the hinges. The plastic cracked spontaniously.
Luckily they changed without asking, they paid the transport and it came back as new.
Its graphic chipset sucks big time. That’s its weakest point together with the poor construction materials.
The rest of the machine is very good. The battery still give me two hours+ of use with ubuntu after a year and a half, and the system works fine.
I couldn’t get an extra 512 module to take its memory to 1 GB, and the worst of all, it came with 2×256 modules, so I have to remove one if I want to put more memory to it.
so, in conclusion: it looks great, but look at me but don’t touch me! It works great but its chipset is very bad. It’s battery works fine and lasts but its memory is not enough…
Love… hate. One day I love it, One day I want to smash it against the wall.
😀
You could try ASUS. I’ve had luck with mine, and a friend of mine had his since 3 years. But I’m not sure it’s the brand that matters the most – the quality varies wildly with the line: Dell Inspirons are pure crap, whereas the more expensive Latitudes are really solid.
Also, as other people pointed out, Thinkpads, while they may be ugly, are close to indestructible – see Stallman’s Thinkpad as a testcase 🙂
I now have a cheap Sony Vaio, which I don’t expect to last really long, but I’m trying to take care of it, so we’ll see. If I had enough money, I’d have bought a Thinkpad.
i had my hands on two acer notebooks in the last two months (one for 700€ and one for 1100€) and they are both shit.
Dell 9300 here, love it.
I’ve used quite a few Acers, and never had an amazing experience.
I recently had a significant problem with my ThinkPad T42p, and am very pleased with being able to fix the problem myself. I describe this in “Fan error” Blown Away.
from author of ubuntu blog I would expect nothing else, then to buy a dell with ubuntu preinstalled 😉
Lloyd, wow! That is totally cool. I like to fix my own electronics whenever/however I can.
neurol23 – right on! I have been thinking along the same line. If they support us, we support them, right? Well, I have to shore up some funds and then try to buy one.
I’ve been reading this blog for a while, and never have commented, but I do feel like I need to put in yet another plug for Thinkpads. I love my r51, and my wife’s T-series is also great, and seems substantially more stylish. I don’t think I could buy any other kind of laptop.
Welcome aboard, James. You shouldn’t stop yourself from commenting, you know 🙂 Hmm, Thinkpad users seem to be totally sold on them!
Forget the glitzy HP’s, look at their business line laptops. Those are much better built.
Same with Dell; the Latitude and XPS lines are better than the Inspiron/Vostro. The M1330 is a wonderful laptop, similar to the MacBook but more customizable (IMO it’s better, since it’s based on Intel’s latest platform, Santa Rosa). 🙂
As everyone has already said, you can’t go wrong with a ThinkPad.
Design-wise, of the ones I mentioned you’ll probably like Dell XPS and HP’s better.
Spend some time on notebookreview.com. Wonderful resource if you’re getting a laptop.
your experience with Acer laptop remembered me one of my friend did get problem with his laptop.I think the best laptops are Dell and Thinkpad.
Thinkpad are robust compared to others.
Why not trying a white MacBook ? It should be around 1299 USD, and you will not be disappointed with such a machine. MacBookPro are nice, but are more expensive comparing with what they offer more. In addition, Ubuntu 7.10 is expected to have native MacIntel support.
All the good options are expensive. Let me try not to break the bank.
ThinkPads seem to reasonably priced, considering how well they are built. And as far as my experience is concerned Ubuntu seems to work well on ThinkPads 🙂
I’ve heard nothing but good things about Thinkpad, though I’ve never had one. I own a Toshiba Satellite and love it. It’s been with me for over a year with regular use and still runs quite well. MacBooks are also in the household, especially since we can get them with the student discount. If you’re not a student of any formal institution (public library cards don’t count, I guess) then check their refurbished models on the web. Same produce, same warranty, lower price.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best with it.
Agh, if only I could edit my post! One more addition:
My Toshiba is a 17″ widescreen, which was had for $999. CompUSA. Closeout deals were found at a local Office Depot last weekend with 15″ models for as little as $650.
I have an Acer TravelMate 4200 and hate it! The batery is terrible, the quality is crap, it randomly turns off and the wireless randomly cuts out.
on a lighter note, i have had a ThinkPad T20 since 2001 which only stopped working 6 months ago. i would recommend IBM (which is now lenovo) to anybody. I also have an Apple iBook which is great but the quality isn’t as good as my thinkpad.
I’m using both: I have an old Thinkpad T40p which got a virus in Windows and only Ubuntu could install properly (Windows wouldn’t even start, never solved that problem). The Thinkpad works well for regular browsing and other small applications, but the MS made the harddisk unstable.
Now got an Acer Travelmate 64-bit dual CPU and running the AMD Feisty 64-bit with GREAT results! Have had to tweak a bit and hack my way a bit, but in general, things work really well!
So I don’t agree at all that Acer is bad. I’m just as happy with my Travelmate as I’ve been with my Thinkpad, both when running internet and office apps, vmware, vnc, matlab and you name it. The problems I’ve encountered are due to software and not hardware. And bad support for AMD64 (e.g. Flash player in Firefox, which is annoying since you have to either hack yourself through it, or use an MS emulated version in wine)
I do not like Acer either. Right now i am using a compaq laptop and i feel it is great.
I am with Toshiba and it works fine so far.
So far I love my Dell running Ubuntu. Details over at All About Ubuntu. And I’m preparing to install Ubuntu 7.10 on my Dell. Looking forward to skipping Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as I continue down the Ubuntu path in 2008.
– Len
You must try a Thinkpad. Its real vaue for the money that you pay. i picked up a refurbished one to save money and am very very happy with it.
I have an Acer Aspire 5670 series laptop which I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) on, and it runs like a charm.
I agree that the build quality is not too too too great, but think of it this way, use it for 3 years and dispose of it on ebay or similar sites.
With the money gained, just buy another one.
Disposable laptops………what’s not to like.
hi, nice blog here.
i got a question for u,
do u know how to set up sound on acer aspire 5054 with feisty fawn ?
i got problems here with my laptop
Acers suck whilst IBM are quallity!
I’d love a MacBook Pro as well, but in lieu of that, I’ll settle for an HP Pavillion Notebook. They are beautiful pieces of hardware and have gotten very good reviews.
Right now, all I have is a desktop.
You should have a quick look at ASUS thats what im getting for xmas great quality for a resonable the specs vs price is extremly competive here in Australia plus they have a standard 2 year warrenty, how many other lappys got that? My next choice was a toshiba
Acer is not to bad, and it not to expensive either.
The Aspire line are cheap, and more cheaply made: they are Acer’s “consumer” line. They’re fine for general home multimedia use; however, Acer’s TravelMate line, and the Ferraris, and the tablets– are as robust as any Thinkpad, and tend to be more durable than any Dell or HP/Compaq…
Very late entry into you I hate Acer Blog. After using many of the major laptops since 1995. I HATE Thinkpads – not much progress in the design or the “goodness” – ask me and I will explain. The Dells – latitude or Inspiron, are useful for about 18 months, if the HD lasts long enough. My Apple PowerBook Titanium of 2003 is still kicking although rather slow, but the Asus I bought in 2004 and the one from last year are head and shoulders above the HPs and Dell I have seen this year. Choose wisely, but Asus has the quality in the class you need.
I’ve had several thinkpads and must say they are rock solid.
Go for it!
>>51
>I HATE Thinkpads – not much progress in the design or the “goodness” – ask me and I will explain.
Actually, your opinion is stupid, so asking you to explain would be kind of moot. Asus isn’t bad compared to other consumer laptops, though.
OP: The r61i’s are very competitively priced, while still retaining most of the features of the T-line. After lenovo bought the line(anything with a 6 in the name), the keyboards seem to include a MICROSOFT WINDOWS-key, though, which is very redundant and stupid.
I bought the Dell 1420n with Ubuntu 7.04 factory installed and I love it. Though I did all the upgrades 2gig RAM, 160HDD, t7500 2.2ghz, glossy screen, wireless mouse. The only thing I don’t love is the upgrade to glossy screen, I can see my reflection. I did have one problem when I upgraded to 7.10 the wifi quit working but a quick trip to http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Ubuntu_7.10/Issues/ipw3945_Wireless_Network_Module_Issues
fixed that problem.
I did all upgrades because the t7500 CPU has IVT so I can use virtualbox with speed and test out all OS’s with out reboot or dual boot
hmm……i have an xps 1210 for a while …and it works like a charm…….xps support is the best there is
I recently purchased a new Acer laptop. I think they have the greatest desigins of any on the market. Mine is always dependable, and I have had nothing but good luck while owning it. They are very affordable, and I feel you should take a look at them before making a final choice. I am a satisfied Acer customer!!!!
there’s no other way around it. if quality is the #1 priority, then you have to go with ThinkPad. I have seen some Acer laptops that are good but their quality is a lot more hit-and-miss. some model lines are great, some are sucky.
I Love my Acer 4520 With Dual Core AMD 64Bit
Multimedia Application run so well as I expected .
I still not install Ubunty Gutsy, yet ..
people at forum said need a lil manually to make WiFi Atheros driver work ,,
My mate said Fedora 8 run perfect on Acer 4520 ..
but unfortunatly , I dont like Fedora too much , So I better stick with Ubuntu that I already familiar with ,,
Ubuntu Gutsy 64Bit still have many problem issue with Acer 4520 ..
Should wait for Ubuntu Hardy released first ??
I’m kind of surprised at all the comments, I didn’t think consumer-line laptops were so undependable.
I’ve had an Acer Aspire 9300 for almost a year, and so far it works like a charm. Kubuntu works perfectly on it. The silver below the keyboard still looks pristine and I don’t have any problems with the hinges or whatnot. The only sign of use would be the space bar that’s getting “shiny” from being pressed a lot.
The only thing I don’t like about it is that battery-life which isn’t that great (but hey it’s powering up a 17 inch screen) and the fact that I had no choice but having it pre-installed with Vista-Crap.
But reading this makes me a little scared something might break on me in a few months/years. *crosses fingers*
My vote must also go with either the IBM ThinkPad or the Dell laptops. Both seem to be extremely utilitarian and built to withstand regular use. I have recently bought a refurbished IBM ThinkPad T23 (P3, 512, 30GB, DVD-ROM, Ethernet) for use as a backup laptop … and love it. I originally bought it to run Linux Kubuntu or openSUSE on, but have (for the time being) abandoned that notion, given Linux’s rather spotty record with Wireless Networking adapters … cardbus, USB, or otherwise. It currently is running WinXP … and accepted and ran all the SP2 upgrades! My “built-for-Windows” USB wireless adapter works well with Windows with minimum fuss (the Encore cardbus wireless G adapter they sent with the laptop is a true piece of junk and won’t connect under Windows and no one is able to get it properly configured under Linux). I have another cardbus wireless adapter on order from Amazon to try out … and if it works, I may try to get it working on Linux. My wife’s Dell Vostro has performed flawlessly, as has most Dell laptops I’ve ever used. Even my Sony Vaio works exceptionally well, but is a bit pricey and can easily be equaled by plenty of other laptops with a lower price tag.
Let’s stay on track shall we? I bought an Acer a few years back it lasted 6mo before the LCD cracked leaving a bleeding spiderweb with a desktop behind it. I sent it off to Acer, it was returned as abuse. MY BUTT! the laptop was working fine, I cut it off placed it in my car drove ten miles, only to pull it out and find a huge crack about three inches. To add insult to injury my Dad bought one against my recommendation not to. His lasted 6mo. Before his screen did the exact same thing sitting in his house. I want to know are we the only Acer users to experience this type of malfunction?
Yeah, same on my dad laptop too, the LCD get blurry and have many line, is hard to see and sometime get wierd beep sound too? i dont know what cause of the sound .
I have had my Acer TravelMate 4200 for 3 years now and it’s been a great deal for me. I bought it on sale at CompUSA for $1000 and at the time it was the cheapest Core Duo around. I haven’t had any issues with it, I’ve been dual booting XP and various Linux distros since the day I bought it and it’s been great. I think the Aspire series are probably junk but the TravelMates seem pretty good to me.
I purchased my Acer Aspire 3003LCi about 2-1/2 years ago. It came with XP Home, but over the years I have tried and run a number of Linux distributions. With Ubuntu versions of Dapper and Edgy, it met all my needs except for reliable suspend/hibernate. I have now installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy, and this Acer is running just great. Wireless only required a bit of tweaking to run without the use of ndiswrapper, and suspend has been FABULOUS. It’s like I have a whole new computer. Hardware wise, everything works great. I swap out the hard drive to try different distros. I bought the larger battery, and I can honestly say it works better than the day I bought it. Personally I love my Acer 3003 LCi laptop.
l Love my Acer 4520 With Dual Core AMD 64Bit
Multimedia Application run so well as I expected .
I still not install Ubunty Gutsy, yet ..
people at forum said need a lil manually to make WiFi Atheros driver work ,,
My mate said Fedora 8 run perfect on Acer 4520 ..
but unfortunatly , I dont like Fedora too much , So I better stick with Ubuntu that I already familiar with ,,
Ubuntu Gutsy 64Bit still have many problem issue with Acer 4520 ..
Should wait for Ubuntu Hardy released first ??
I bought my Acer laptop back in March ’07, and it worked relatively fine up until taking it in the beginning of January of ’08. I had some relatively minor problems/annoyances, with the screen brightness not staying bright, and some driver issues with the web cam interfering with using my canon scanner, but overall pretty good. So then the latch closing the printer broke, and since it was still under warranty I took it into the Acer repair depot in Mississauga. I decided to drive it in and pay the gas myself, because I wanted to make sure it arrived in one piece and that I recieved it in one piece. When I got the laptop back… the latch was fixed, but the computer didn’t work. So I had Purolator pick it up this time, and Fed-Ex shipped it back – and when I opened it up, it didn’t work immediately, but once I plugged it in it was fine. So I had it working for a couple a weeks… and then it wasn’t working again. And to clarify not working, I mean various blue screens, black screens, blinking cursors, etc etc etc. I had a rude rep on the phone tell me it must have been something I installed/didn’t install… which is bull. The short of it is, my computer went in for a total of 5 repairs… 3 new motherboards, 2 new harddrives. When I got it back from it’s 5th repair, it blew up again within 12hrs. I’m now in the process of getting a new computer, but the one they’ve offered me is not, in my opinion, equal to the computer that I originally purchased. The representative called me on a Tuesday saying I had been approved, and explained part of the specs to me – but I was about to go to work, so when he asked if that sounded fine, I said “I guess, but can you call me back tomorrow to arrange everything because I have to go to work!” – tomorrow came… no phone calls. I called him at his direct line in Waco, Texas, and he never responded to my messages (and this was a 2nd level representative, not a first responder). So I called again, and went through another 2nd tier rep. He said that I didn’t have a choice, that I already said that the laptop was fine, even though I wasn’t completely told what I was getting. Left in a helpless situation, I decided to accept the new laptop anyways. So they arranged a Purolator pick up, and I sent it on it’s way. So I called on Friday, and the first guy told me that my laptop had been repaired and was ready to be shipped, and I was like WTF? so I talked to a 2nd tier guy who got it sorted out, so he said, and said that he still had to email the repair center and get everything straightened out. So fine. So later that night, I check my email, and I get an email from the repair depot saying that they’ve shipped off my old laptop! So when I called in Monday morning, the guy, the same guy who never called me back a week prior, said that apparently the service request that had been put in was never cancelled and so the repair depot went to the oldest request number first and repaired it and shipped it off. So then when Fedex showed up at my door that day, I had to refuse the package. And now I remain waiting to get my new, or should I say, replacement refurbished laptop that isn’t as good as the one that I originally bought, to show up at my doorstep.
So guess what? Last Tuesday, sick of all Acer’s CRAP, I bought myself a nice, Duo Core 2GB Mem 250GB HD Compaq Laptop for $599 from Best Buy, with a 2 year warranty, and I will NEVER deal with Acer again. I’ll sell the laptop that I’m getting back – whenever I get it back – to some poor schmuck who I feel sorry for, but nonetheless, will sell to because I need to pay off what I owe since I really couldn’t afford to go out and buy a new laptop.
NEVER buy an acer. Don’t Do it! There are better deals out there!
Hi. Try a Zepto. They ought to do the trick 🙂
The Aspire line are cheap, and more cheaply made: they are Acer’s “consumer” line. They’re fine for general home multimedia use; however, Acer’s TravelMate line, and the Ferraris, and the tablets– are as robust as any Thinkpad, and tend to be more durable than any Dell or HP/Compaq…
No one’s suggested System 76 yet? I have a Darter (which I understand is also the base for some model of Asus), and it’s my daily driver at work — much more enjoyable than the company-issued Dell D620, being able to reliably forward X apps instead of using VNC is nice too.
I have an Acer Aspire 5500Z and I’m quite happy with it, it has all the basic needs and it hasn’t failed me once.
A Macbook is pretty neat though!
The Aspire line are cheap, and more cheaply made: they are Acer’s “consumer” line. They’re fine for general home multimedia use; however, Acer’s TravelMate line, and the Ferraris, and the tablets– are as robust as any Thinkpad, and tend to be more durable than any Dell or HP/Compaq…
The Aspire line are cheap, and more cheaply made: they are Acer’s “consumer” line. They’re fine for general home multimedia use; however, Acer’s TravelMate line, and the Ferraris, and the tablets– are as robust as any Thinkpad, and tend to be more durable than any Dell or HP/Compaq…
your experience with Acer laptop remembered me one of my friend did get problem with his laptop.I think the best laptops are Dell and Thinkpad.
Thinkpad are robust compared to others.
I have the same Acer laptop you have. Kubuntu is slow install. Its a snail. I was horrified when I could not boot it back to Windows XP. I had to reinstall Kubuntu again a number of times with what I wanted to do, the BIOS was so outdated and I think Ubuntu does the service to put Gurb on its installation automatically. It saved my Acer machine plus XP. I also have a Gateway machine, which I have Vista on it now. I am a bit more reluctant to test Kubuntu on it, but I did put Kubuntu on a USB stick drive. I will see how it works.
I have to agree with Athropos about Thinkpad laptops. I love mine. Granted, I two Thinkpad T41’s that were made by IBM. I haven’t tried the offerings from Lenovo, however, so can’t vouch for them. So far, Linux support has been pretty good. I’m running Ubuntu on one and Fedora on the other. Fedora doesn’t like the integrated wireless card but it doesn’t seem to bother Ubuntu.
Like you, I would love to have a MAC but the money just isn’t there for one…..
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I bought an acer laptop and it broke down the day after the warranty expired. I guess the hard drive just failed. I have been using a dell inspiron laptop for the last few years now and it works perfectly. Ubuntu can suspend and do all the other laptop functions well on my inspiron. Also one thing you should know is that dell recently got into this agreement in which all of its new computers would have open source hardware drivers. I guess this means that all new dell computers should be able to run Ubuntu with little hassle.
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I bought an Acer Laptop years ago and it was a lemon.
The keyboard inscriptions came off in very short order, was replaced under guarantee after a lot of haggling, then the new keyboard did the same – the paint just lifted! By this time it was out of guarantee and I was forced to use a keyboard – some laptop!
Acer were completely unhelpful and said I used the computer too much! Beat that!
My external keyboards have lasted for years with no problems at all so Acer can “stick” their computers and attitude they are junk on both counts!
Bob
New Zealand
We’re looking for an alternative source of wholesale laptop battereis for the thinkpad x series. thanks
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ASUS is OK, unless you have to use their warranty. That simply does not exist. I got one with really badly working keyboard and they refused to get it fixed.
Здравствуй! Спасибо за подаренные хорошие эмоции…
Хорошая статья, узнал много нового!)
very nice article.
My acer aspire 5920G had 3G ram, 250G drive, core2duo, and the case is designed by the BMW design team at Design Works in California. It is not cheap feeling at all. It works perfect in XP and Ubuntu 8.04. Unfortunately, it has one of the nvidia doomed to fail chips. Google “8600Mm g86” and you will see what I mean. Apparently all G84, G86 and G92’s are defective. My friend has 6 figures worth of nvidia stock, so he got the full report. It is costing nvidia 3 billion not 200 million like they said. They are recalling all such chipped computers in Europe and Japan, and nvidia has to dispose of the lead and other toxic things they used.
I just called Acer because mine glitches out and reboots when I game too much. Then it won’t boot until it cools. Acer Canada said, you have to pay $33 for a Vista restore CD otherwise my warrenty is invalid. Didn’t I know it was free the first 60 days? Gee, when I called Acer 2 days after I bought it asking for a plain Vista cd, they could have told me that. Grrrrr, I love this computer, but hate Acer Canada. Asus next time all the way.
Haha on Acer Canada. The rep wouldn’t budge until I paid $33 and restored Vista, which I wiped on day 1. Then I stayed on the line for the dispute person in the US. He was the same way, and then when I said, that I called 4 days after I bought it, and had a service ID too, and asked for a Vista refund, and the said ship it to us and we will wipe the hardrive and remove the Windows Vista sticker and refund me $65 because the law requires them to.
So, I said why is my warrenty valid if I get $65 back and remove Vista, and invalid if I just wipe it myself and keep the sticker? Then he says, ship it to us, pay the cost, we will wipe the drive, restore Vista, and fix it if it is broken. So I say, well I bought it at the Source, and when I called them just now, they said they will pay the shipping (store policy), or you can use http://www.fixmyacer.com who will send you out a box with pre-paid shipping. He says, we never send out boxes. I say, he said that you did, but if you won’t can I just bring it to the store? He said yes, here is your Service Request #.
I blame Microsoft.
The sad part, is that I know what Acer will probably do. They will update the BIOS which causes the fan to run on high all the timem, shortening your battery life and making much more noise. What I want, is them to put in a new motherboard without a nvidia melting G84, G86 or G92.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=8600M+g86&btnG=Search&meta= <- Google Search on nvidia problem
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/703/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad <- link to Inquirer on the story
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/07/09/nvidia.g84.g86.faulty/ http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/052/1050052/nvidia-chips-show-underfill-problems
I wish I could somehow ask them not to ruin the bios, and just replace the graphics chip and motherboard if they want. I don’t want a loud, shorter battery life laptop.
Also, I notice that ubuntu 8.10 fails to work in 3d mode on my nvidia 6200, so I had to go back to 8.04. I wonder if it is time to switch to ATI?
😦
The nvidia problem is due to “thermal cycling.” That means, the more times you shut down and restart, the quicker it will die. Keeping it hot is better than hot, cold, hot, cold…
Class action time. Europe and Japan are already fixed.
I will never ever buy a system with Microsoft again.
OK, back to work now. Sorry to post so much, but its all true.
I mean really, who did this mess, Bill Gates, or Steve Ballmer? If you buy a computer with Vista then you are not the same as if you buy Vista separately. If it comes pre-installed, then you can only keep it on the first partition, and 42 GB is as small as you can get it, I tried. Then you use make a partition, install your purchased copy of XP on partition 2, and use Vistaboot.exe to fix the dual boot menu. Then you can install ubuntu linux in more partitions. BUT, you have a useless copy of Vista taking up 42 GB!
Instead, if you ship your computer back and get $65 from Acer, or $200 from HP and IBM, then buy your own copy of Vista, you can install it after XP like your supposed to do, then install Ubuntu and have much more (20 GB) of hardrive space extra. Hey Bill, a GB is big, and not to waste, even with a 250.
I know what MS is up to. They want you to buy Vista pre-installed, AND buy it separate. That is the only way they can get a quarterly gain since they are a public company, and answer really only to $$$$$.
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Regarding the display problems:
I had the same thing.
My acer was still under warrantee. I submitted a support request, and they asked me to send it to their service center.
I had to send it to Australia ( I live in NZ), which was inconvenient.
But, they replaced a part and it now works.
They did this for me at no charge, and even paid for the postage.
Does anyone know where I can get an Acer Travelmate 290 battery pack?
Mine is about to combust and I really can’t afford to buy a new notebook at the moment. I’m looking for stores in Toronto, Ontario, Canada possibly, or anywhere within Canada or U.S. if they can ship it too.
Thanks
Acer 9300…junk 13 months old DVD drive gone. 14 months old: motherboard/video card poof! Luckily I had an extended warranty but they took over 2 months getting parts from Acer…First motherboard they sent in was D.O.A. Then their updated bios wouldn’t allow running 4 GB of RAM…had to go back to an older bios. Now I am in the process of reformatting again ‘cuz the warranty repair says the rest of the problems are software related…not warrantied. Trying to get into the bios ‘cuz it won’t let me boot from CD. Waste of time…7th reformat since I bought it and it is only 16 months old now.
Acer TravelMate 4200… Paint coming off touch keys, Start button breaking down, left touchpad button breaking down, Battery keeps about 3 minutes….arghhhh
While the G3 was a super machine the Macs aren’t built like they used to.
They’re metal, so they they crack and bend, have relatively poor battery life, comparatively poor wireless connectivity and get very hot on the underside. The new Macbook Pros seem especially fragile.
My advice, try a Thinkpad (T400/X200) and be done with it.
Cheers,
I’ve never even liked Acer.
My experience is that it has a lot of failures on hardware and some bad support.
Also the overheating on many laptops is an issue.
I’ll personally stick to Dell. They have fast support responce, driver-updates and they are quite cheap.
My Acer laptop is running fine for 2 years and to be honest, each idiot buys a Macbook to be cool.
The finish started scratching straight away, all the paint (yes “paint”) wore off the buttons on the console and the icons above the plugs, the start button collapsed because it is simply a springy piece of plastic which fatigued and broke, and noe some other parts are breaking off. So, I’m sorry to tell you Ben, mine is just VER 2 years old, before all this shit started happening. I’m back to DELL as soon as I can afford it.
My refurbished acer aspire laptop has been running perfectly like new, no problems, for a year and a half. I will probably buy another refurbished acer product from tigerdirect later this year.
I have only known problems with acer laptops.
The few we sold, all returned to the shop with failures only caused by cheap production materials.
The used plastics are kinda cheap, as is the price.
I pefer Dell. they have decent materials and a fair price.
[…] End of a Love Affair with Acer « Ubuntu Blog […]
[…] End of a Love Affair with Acer « Ubuntu Blog […]
Yup another unhappy Acer owner, I could not install Linux at all. The problem was the ATI graphics card it appeared it was hardwired only to except Windows install. I tried everything. Acer tech support were sleeping at the wheel. One Techie had no idea what Linux was. I sold this system and bought pre-installed Ubuntu Linux syatem and its been nothing but a joy to use. I am dual booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu something I promised not to do but I am in College now and really need Windows as I am using some Windows specific software that won’t run under WINE or Virtualized under Virtual Box.
oha thnxx
My Acer laptop is running fine for 2 years and to be honest, each idiot buys a Macbook to be cool.Thanks for all
Your two year period of grace (enhanced warranty) appears to be up. Prepare for all the bits to start breaking right on queue.
The finish started scratching straight away, all the paint (yes “paint”) wore off the buttons on the console and the icons above the plugs, the start button collapsed because it is simply a springy piece of plastic which fatigued and broke, and noe some other parts are breaking off. So, I’m sorry to tell you Ben, mine is just VER 2 years old, before all this shit started happening.
Yup another unhappy Acer owner, I could not install Linux at all. The problem was the ATI graphics card it appeared it was hardwired only to except Windows install.
I know loads of friends who have had problems with acer laptops over the past. At first they seem great then seem to go downhill.
I bought my Acer Aspire 5920 in 02-08. I have had nothing but great use from it. It came with Vista, I have wiped Hd and loaded Ubuntu 9.04, removed ubuntu and loaded a steroid version of XP, and last night installed Vista Ultimate. I never had a bit of problem with any of the OS I installed. I did however search and find drivers for each OS before swapping. Core 2 duo T5450, 160 GB HD, 3gb DDR2 from factory and never had to install anything else. Yes it has a plastic case, but it is very durable. I have 5 kids that all play on this laptop when we are camping which is often. All keys on keyboard still look new even though this laptop is used about 10 hours out of everyday. Maybe I just got lucky and got a good one.
verry good thank you.
10 hours out of everyday. Maybe I just got lucky and got a good one.
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Yeah, i’m in the same boat as you. i”ve had two Acer Travelmates, both excellent machines. I bought a new Acer Aspire Timeline, only to have it randomly lock up and not boot up properly. Reinstalling Windows didn’t fix it and the two times it’s gone back to Acer has done more harm then good. Thankfully, i managed to return it and exchange it for a HP Pavilion dm3. All in the space of 6 months.
Thanks.. nice blog mate 🙂
I have never used an Acer, I stay the hell away from them for their reputation alone.
Not smart to recommend a brand to someone based on your experience with ‘one’ of their products.
Nice blog, had a blast reading it.
About Acers; I never liked them. They always seemed exactly the price you’re paying: cheaper than others. I myself have a HP Pavilion notebook which is fine, but not too great either. I’m thinking about buying a MacBook Pro myself aswell eventually, just need to save up some money. Still in doubts if it will be worth the money, but ever since I’ve started working with them I have fallen in love.
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If you want quality, choose a ThinkPad. I own a G40 from 2004 and I’m very happy with it. I’ve used T42s and T60s at work and they are built like tanks.
meh, i still love my acer, it really depends what kinda of acer laptop your going to buy, many of them are made cheap therefore they will break down on you… i have an acer aspire blue gem 6920 atm, and i just ordered an acer one laptop. I’ve been happy with this acer aspire for almost two years now, everything is working great, burner, screen, keyboard, etc.
Thinkpad. I’ve also used HP/Compaq. I bought my wife a T42 Thinkpad 3 years ago and it’s still working perfectly. She has gotten food particles stuck in the keyboard and they replaced the keyboard for no charge this past summer. I didn’t even buy an extended warranty. The titanium hinges on the Thinkpad alone make the feel of the laptop more sturdy and rugged. I think you might want to check out a friends Thinkpad to see what I mean.
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Yeah, same on my dad laptop too, the LCD get blurry and have many line, is hard to see and sometime get wierd beep sound too? i dont know what cause of the sound .
Same happened to me.
Bought an Acer laptop, but it’s a piece of junk. When I started habing cooling problems, I decided to take a look at the cpu, and the fan.
The thing was the assemblers used the wrongs screws to screw the cooler plate to the cpu!! They were too small, so the plate got eventually loose!
It’s unbelieveable.
Bought an Acer laptop, but it’s a piece of junk. When I started habing cooling problems, I decided to take a look at the cpu, and the fan.
The thing was the assemblers used the wrongs screws to screw the cooler plate to the cpu!! They were too small, so the plate got eventually loose!
It’s unbelieveable.
Dells are good machines if you just get the main business line — the Latitude’s. The price is medium, but they are hard to destroy and cheap to fix. They still come with a 3-year warranty.
Whenever I go laptop shopping I always pick the thing up and twist it. If there is too much flex I assume the rest of the build is sub par. I’ve bought 6 laptops in the past 3 years and from my experience, the higher level HPs and Asus laptops are the only ones that have satisfied my own personal criteria for quality, durability, and linux compatibility of the components. I do have one Sony Vaio X series (for an ultraportable) and that was a huge mistake. The lack of a decent linux driver for the GMA500 chipset (poulsbo) means running linux on it is not an option if you want to use the 4 hours or so battery life to watch movies on long train journeys.
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I bought a Sony Vaio VGN-FW455J about a year ago and the only problem i’ve ever had with it was the original power brick got WAYY too hot. Sony has excellent support, they sent me the replacement brick and i’ve never had any other problems 900$ at a company called Conns Appliances in OKC, OK.. although i think they may be nationwide
I’m a tech working for a repair business and Acer’s are undoubtedly the most common machines we see. They also feel and look the cheapest and are by far the least robust. The plastics and metals are low grade, flimsy, thin and when a problem comes in regarding something like an OS issue you often see a broken hinge or a crack in the top panel. Also, just like others are saying they flex like rubber and that cant be good for the board.
Unfortunately a lot of brands nowadays are suffering a decline in quality because of all the competition. HP, Dell and Acer used to be pretty good but the new line of stuff is horrific. The cheap Inspirons are like a childs toy and the Pavillion’s are out other most common bring-in.
I can’t blame people for shelling 1,000 minimum on new MacBook’s. They’re astounded by the quality and feel and are willing to have it at a high price. Also the innovation in the little things like good thumbscoops, balanced weight, sturdy body, shockingly high quality screen, totally redesigned glass trackpads. Basically the experience you have means you can’t ever go back to dirt.
I think it’s fair to say anything from a mainstream consumer line is rubbish, I mean really rubbish nowadays. It’s almost like they’re designed to last barely 6 months.
Anything from a business line is much higher quality but definitely still in decline from what I can see.
Well, i’ve got a Acer Extensa 5635Z for half a year now and I’m really happy. Everything works fine, no traces of heavy use (minimum 6 hours a day), and it has one of the best keyboards ever built in a notebook!
If there were such terrible problems with acer NBs 3 years ago, they’ve done a pretty good factoring improvement, at least at the low budged segment! Well, if I’ve had more money at that time, I probably would have bought a different NB, but from now on, acer is at my Top 3 NB manufacturers 🙂
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acer?…really?…just something about buying a laptop that is sold at walmart doesn’t exactly appeal to me
ryan
I have to say that Thinkpads are very well built laptops. The best that I’ve used. The looks are ok, but the components rock. I have a Dell D620 issued to me at work and I would definitely trade it for a nice Thinkpad. I’ve also used HP/Compaq. I bought my wife a T42 Thinkpad 3 years ago and it’s still working perfectly. She has gotten food particles stuck in the keyboard and they replaced the keyboard for no charge this past summer. I didn’t even buy an extended warranty. The titanium hinges on the Thinkpad alone make the feel of the laptop more sturdy and rugged. I think you might want to check out a friends Thinkpad to see what I mean.
thinkpads are the best !
the same happened to me,compaq also carry the same issues, i tried sony then, quality ok there but s/w support and wireless still issue
Finally i switched to Dell, fantastic machine dell inspiron 1525 ,a and after 3 years i boughr one more dell with former , both are working great, later s dell ,ini netbook giving me 8 hrs battery life
acer aspire 5003 is the worst ever laptop,i too regret having recomended it to people in the past,i must be a crime to sell acer product,the the makers should all be locked up,anyone working for acer should be ashame of themselves,anyone with shares in acer should throw it away
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Maybe I should try a Thinkpad sometime – overlooking the looks. It really doesn’t matter how good something looks, but design just makes it easier to love things.
acer brought out some good stuff over years
I’m still in love with my Acer. and it is even 5 years old 🙂
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An incredible and expensive piece of junk! I would Never buy , recommend or othwerwise own another piece of Acer junk!!! I bought an Acer laptop at Costco (I didn’t realize that ALL Costco electronics are sub-par junk and they do NOT stand behind them.). I have had the laptop since Nov 2011 or 17 months. I have had to send it back to the manufacturer 3 times to have the hard drive replaced! I just sent it back for the 4th time because when I was using it there was a large pop sound and the inner screen fractured! They clain that this is not a defect?! Really?! What is itwhen you are sitting and typing and the screen suddenly looks like a stained class window. They said they would be happy to repair it for $199!!!! They would be the only ones happy because I sure am not. What a poor product and awful customer service. Never, never, never recommend Acer!!!!
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End of a Love Affair with Acer | Ubuntu Blog
There’s definately a great deal to know about this topic.
I love all the points you’ve made.
I had a similar experience but with Toshiba. And generally older models are much better than new. At least it looks that way to me. I hate Apple but on the end of the day it seems that they keep an eye on continuity of quality
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