Anyone ever been satisfied with the $500 acers etc laptops ?

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wearetheborg · #1 Post by **wearetheborg** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 12:24 am

I was at a shop today, and played around with a $550 acer.
It actually wasnt bad. Screen was gorgeous (albeit at only a WXGA+), keyboard was okay, outer casing was plastic. But overall it seemed ok.

Anyone ever gone for these laptops and been satisfied ?

skitty4gzus · #2 Post by **skitty4gzus** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 12:31 am

i used an acer for work, it was bought brand new and it was not of the best quality. plus, battery only lasted about 45 minutes to an hour during moderate use. screen was almost useless in natural lighting while in my truck.

#3 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:30 am

My youngest daughter just bought a new 15" WXGA HP at Best Buy online for $500 (with her own money) about 2 weeks ago. I tried to steer her to a used ThinkPad, but her preference was something new, with Vista, and she only wanted to spend about $500.

Other than the fact that it only has a touchpad

, has a glossy widescreen display, and the keyboard layout is non-standard (to me), it is not a bad machine. It came with an Athlon processor, 1 GB RAM, Windows Vista Home Premium, DVD burner with Lightscribe, and a remote control. I do like the overall appearance of the HP and the display hinges look fairly strong.

Interestingly and disheartingly, when we went to the stores looking at notebooks, only the Lenovo T60 did not have a glossy display (out of about 30 different models on display at Best Buy, as well as at Micro Center, CompUSA, Office Depot, and Office Max). All of the display models were widescreen. The poor 4:3 matte displays are nowhere to be seen.

Website · #4 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:36 am

They are ok, for what they are.....$500 laptops.

#5 Post by **KristianJ** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:40 am

I haven't gone through the motions with one, but I had a close look at a few of the newer Acer Aspire designs today and they really do look rather aesthetically challenged. The Toshibas are far better looking IMO and they feel reasonably good as well...a friend of mine has one that's about a year old that I used for a day earlier in the year.

#6 Post by **Kyocera** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:16 am

A friend of mine bouht a dell Vostro , made me want to hurl

. He was complianing of only getting 1.5 to 2 hrs battery life, and asked me about it, just for the heck I pulled out the battery to look at it and it felt like a feather (4 cell), like it had sawdust in it. Must be some new superlight technology,

eh?

#7 Post by **KristianJ** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 8:36 am

Kyocera wrote:A friend of mine bouht a dell Vostro , made me want to hurl . He was complianing of only getting 1.5 to 2 hrs battery life, and asked me about it, just for the heck I pulled out the battery to look at it and it felt like a feather (4 cell), like it had sawdust in it. Must be some new superlight technology, eh?

Love the Liam Lynch flashback in your sig, Mike!

#8 Post by **Kyocera** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:54 am

KristianJ wrote:Love the Liam Lynch flashback in your sig, Mike!

WHATEVA!!

Purcy · #9 Post by **Purcy** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:31 am

tfflivemb2 wrote:They are ok, for what they are.....$500 laptops.

Not in answer to the OP question, but my boss recently bought a no-name laptop at Walmart while on vacation so he could check email and was thrilled to pay $399. BUT, in reply to Steve's post above, yes for other brands $500 is really nothing for what you get - but just give me that $500 and let me loose in our Marketplace on this forum......... and I guarantee you I'll get a laptop that outperforms even a $1200 other brand laptop. In other words, before I will buy a brand new "great price" other name laptop, I will always buy an older Thinkpad.

Melvyn · #10 Post by **Melvyn** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:26 pm

I've had, since around year 1999:
ThinkPad (don't remember the model, i wasn't fan) PIII 64mb and so on. It worked good for years.

In 2004 HP Pavilion ZE4900 (US$790 new), and it sucks. After 4 months it was looking as 4 years old. I returned to my last Sony PCG-K13 Penium 4 2.8ghz good in performance, but battery sucks.

The same year and for several weeks, I used a Toshiba S311 (or something so) which cost US$480 it was the worst thing I've touched.

In 2005 I turned to a Dell Inspiron 2200 (US$700 new) which resulted the best machine I've touched (after Thinkpads). It's light, powerfull and... almost like a thinkpad. I bough an acer (US$670 new) and used it for 1 week before my next TP (3 months ago, mb died. Screen also have failed. So the guy who bought me returned me. I sent him to claim guarantee. They changed for a refurbished one.)

I returned to ThinkPad last year... and nobody will move me from here.

kensplace · #11 Post by **kensplace** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:14 am

One good thing about thinkpads that I have noticed, is the large availability of cheap second hand (even new) addons, docks, spare parts etc.

If when my warranty runs out, my machine should break down, It wont be hard to find spares for it on ebay. Whereas, the cheap laptops may be much harder to find spares for, due to them not being as popular and widely used. There is often less third party support, in the form of forums like this for the cheaper laptops.

dsigma6 · #12 Post by **dsigma6** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:01 am

Kyocera wrote:WHATEVA!!

They use that song as the opener on the Barsky Show in Philadelphia on 94.1 WYSP.

$500 laptops, Booo!!

jamerslong · #13 Post by **jamerslong** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:47 pm

i have afriend at work who has an Acer and it is horrible, the Display has bad resolution and is extremely slow. when he is playing music it breaks up alot because it cant keep pace... i reinstalled win Xp pro on it and it was still slacking.

Anyone ever been satisfied with the $500 acers etc laptops ?

Anyone ever been satisfied with the $500 acers etc laptops ?

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