Acer Laptops ?

Face facts here – the notebook market is extremely fluid. The standard product life cycle for notebooks is approximately three to four months, at which point the next generation of notebook comes through. Sometimes a whole range reaches the end of its lifecycle, and replaced in that market segment by a new ‘family’ of notebook, which has usually spent about a year in R&D, with focus placed upon enhanced capability, reliability and desirability. I would also suggest that the numbers speak for themselves, and I can assure you that Acer would not have captured the number one slot in the UK low-end notebook market if they had a dog of a product. I speak from the standpoint of a Product Manager who has been responsible for ranging, marketing and selling notebooks, tablets, and pc’s from Acer, Sony, Toshiba, and HP, so I guess you could say I do actually know what I’m talking about, rather than just going off searching for other people’s (biased) quotes and posting them up in an attempt to look credible.

of course I’m biased, and you’re not?, everyone has their biases old boy. Acer, like almost everyone else, does not make their own notebook.. most of the name brands create contracts with ODMs such as Asus, Quanta, Uniwill, Compal, etc (virtually all Taiwanese, and some Chinese and Korean companies) who design and create the notebooks, which are then sold under their respective OEMs. For example Fujitsu-Siemen’s Amilo lines are Uniwill models, while most of HPs and Dell’s upper line models (i.e Latitudes) are Asus and Quanta. Asus has been known to design notebooks for high end companies such as Apple and gaming companies such as Voodoo.. plus they are alot cheaper from to buy directly, which is why i would reccomend them.

of course, I guess you are credible since your job seems to be exactly like the other person I quoted, but differ in the fact that you’re Steve Young, the man who fancies spitfires and old women.
As for me trying to be credible? well that’s as credible as me being the world’s best porn star. but at least i know better enough to accuse some one else of being “bias”

Hamburger, that quote is somewhat misleading. I’l highlight two sections:

“Back before they even made notebooks, their desktops BLEW”

“Acer sent us some of their tablets a couple years ago as we had a huge call for tablets from connections we had in the medical field…. those tabets basically all broken down within a year”

First things first. Before Acer started doing notebooks… well as far as I’m aware, Acer have been manufacturing notebooks for some years now, and not always under their own brand. 😉 So if the Desktops ‘BLEW’ in the days before they built notebooks, and I’m certainly not aware of such things happening today, I’d say that’s a largely irrelevant piece of historical trivia / scaremongering from someone with a major axe to grind against Acer.

Hey, guess what, McDonnel Douglas DC-10’s used to drop out of the skies in the Seventies – does that mean that the same company’s DC-9’s and MD80’s are unsafe today? See, pretty pathetic argument isn’t it?

Tablet pc’s. Right, these have not been on the general market for very long. I attended the launch of the first HP (then Compaq) tablet about three years ago, and take it from me, that product was a dog. Technology however moves inexorably onwards and upwards, and today’s tablet pc’s are a far better product across the board. Yes, Acer included. Criticising a product range when it was in it’s infancy, two years ago, is again, a largely irrelevant and pathetic argument.

Face facts here – the notebook market is extremely fluid. The standard product life cycle for notebooks is approximately three to four months, at which point the next generation of notebook comes through. Sometimes a whole range reaches the end of its lifecycle, and replaced in that market segment by a new ‘family’ of notebook, which has usually spent about a year in R&D, with focus placed upon enhanced capability, reliability and desirability. I would also suggest that the numbers speak for themselves, and I can assure you that Acer would not have captured the number one slot in the UK low-end notebook market if they had a dog of a product. I speak from the standpoint of a Product Manager who has been responsible for ranging, marketing and selling notebooks, tablets, and pc’s from Acer, Sony, Toshiba, and HP, so I guess you could say I do actually know what I’m talking about, rather than just going off searching for other people’s (biased) quotes and posting them up in an attempt to look credible.

btw, before you make the worst mistake of your life, or your friend’s life.. a quote from elsewhere..

Acer has never had a good following. Back before they even made notebooks, their desktops BLEW….. I mean so bad that when you’d mention “asus” people would go.. “oh yeah, acer, I’ve heard of them, but i don’t like them” ……

Their notebooks are getting “fancier” but they still lack a LOT. Acer sent us some of their tablets a couple years ago as we had a huge call for tablets from connections we had in the medical field…. those tabets basically all broken down within a year and required replacement of many of the physical plastic parts on the system itself. With that, we found much better tablets that have made it through at least the last two years of real world use without any problems……

Whether it’s the plastic they use or what……… they physically don’y hold up well……. With that said, they don’t use Asus motherboards, and that’s the BIGGEST thing that Asus’ systems have going for them. Even if people know know the quality they’re going to get in their laptop, if they know Asus’ name in motherboards, they’ll know that even if they were built like junk, as long as they took care of it, it’s going to last them a good long time…… luckily, they are built well too and that’s something a lot of people find out after they buy them.

But Acer has gone the way of dell….. making the highest speced system that can pull in the most money and sell it cheap. There are things you’re not getting…. just because it has this cpu, this hard drive, this ram….. this video card… this screen…. it doesn’t mean that you’re getting everything you’d expect.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=19857

if you want quality, IBM leads by far, with Fujitsu, Asus, and LG being very good as well.

if you want a good deal, then Dell leads by far assuming you use the coupons (i dont know if the UK has them, but Canada and the states have them).

Acer Travelmates are pretty good value for that price bracket, personally I’d rate them higher than the Toshiba overall. In my previous role here I was marketing both Acer and Tosh notebooks, and the Acer brand has come on leaps and bounds in terms of build quality, portability and specifications over the last two years while Tosh have stood still.

Acer have injected a lot of investment into their low end notebook offerings as they’re on a major marketshare drive to try and take the number one slot from HP in that segment. I currently run an HP nc4010 as my work machine, but if it was my budget for a personal machine, I’d go Acer.

My original forum online, and a great one to boot, is www.notebookforums.com

Great forum that has recently become much, much bigger.

btw, no offense to anyone..but if you’re going to ask about laptops.. best you ask in a laptop forum, not an aviation one..
try this site www.notebookreview.com and go post at their forum under Hardware section and see what results you get.. when posting, please mind what price range you want, screen size, uses (gaming or no gaming will be a huge factor if you need a GPU or not).. and weight/size.

Acer laptops tend to have curved keyboards which may or may not suit your style.. they are cheap, but some aren’t built very well. others are okay.. in general they are your typical laptops..
If you really want to save money AND have something of high quality.. I highly reccomend an Asus notebook.. particularly the “built on” series rather than the “ensemble” series.. since you are in the UK.. i’m not too sure where you can get them.. I also like to mention that the UK/Europe in general, has a WAY larger number of brands to choose from, where as the US has much less due to numerous non-compete contracts with major brands..

a mate of mine has an Acer laptop, he hasnt had any problems with his so far, looks like a well built machine.

If you buy this weeks Private Eye magazine, on the back pages there is a clearance warehouse selling off cheap computer equipment,sells bankrupt stock,and all still has Manufactures warranty’s with them, there was a top of the range Toshiba laptop for sale there for £490 or there abouts