http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115592 To me this looks like a solid laptop at an unbeatable price. Any reason I shouldn't get it? Is Acer a bad/cheap company?
If you don't care about battery life, glossy screen, low resolution for a 16inch, as well as the sturdiness system (menaning, not sturdy like the Dell Latitude E series or Lenovo, for example), sure why not. Acer has one of the worst tech support/service you you will ever face. I read story of having people hang up in their face, when they where just calmly explaining a problem they faced. But then again, it's 750$ US and you have 4GB of RAM and a powerful GPU. Oh, don't get fooled with DDR3 memory on laptops with the Intel Core 2 Duo.. there is no visible (and very close in benchmark) to the performance of DDR2. You always get what you paid for. If you want a more sturdy system, very good/excellent tech support, clean system with no junk, have all the disk (drivers + OS (not image)), and usually a longer battery life (on new models), then look at Dell, HP, Lenovo Small Business (you don't need a business). BUT, it's way more expensive (1.5 to 2k Canadian), and you sacrifice GPU performance. For example, I'll use my laptop... I have the Dell Latitude E6400, 14inch, LED backlit 1440x900 screen, Centrino2, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M (equ: Geforce 9300M overclock a bit (I use the geforce drivers)), backlit keyboard, 9 hours of battery life (max), P8400 CPU, Vista 64-bit, 4GB, metal based also used as heatsink, 1 screw full access to the system, CPU not soldered in (but GPU is). 3 year warranty with 3 year next business day on site service (this is where Dell contracted firm of your area comes and fix your system in front of you.. very professional in my case) Warranty (with the the tech guy that comes over) is the MINIMUM you can get form Dell in Canada. As you can see, it's a nice system.. but I had to sacrifice sound quality and GPU power, and pay 1 600$ Canadian back in November (if you call you serially negotiate the price, my system was originally 2016$) Expensive.. yes.. But, this is my experience with my laptop. The day I got it, there was a dent on the system. I called, and immediately built me a new one, I get to keep my system until I get the new one, once I have it I can return the one with the dent, and of course switch HDD so I don't have to re-install all my stuff. The new system, had 1 dead pixel on the screen. I called, Dell said I need at least 10 of them... I said, "it's in the middle side, and it prevents me from programming can you please see if something can be done?", and he directly said "certainly sir, we will send you a tech guy at the time/day you want to replace the screen." Oh, and everyone (except the Dell sales rep) was local, and I did not wait more then 2min on the phone. Now that is impressive service. Then again... I paid way more then you and have much less power on the GPU side. Personally, the way I saw it was that I already have a gaming desktop computer.. I don't need a laptop for such thing.. I took the Nvidia solution as Intel 4500HD has not only per application drivers mentality, but also has overheating isssues (yea, an Intel chip), also I can play light game at low-med settings when I am on the go and want to play.
I've had nothing but good service with Lenovo. On site, accidental damage, you name it. The cheapest thinkpad doesn't cost much more than the acer, too, but it's a solid machine. Acer is the kind of crap you would buy and use for one semester in school, having problems with it the entire time, and being given the run around for warranty service, and eventually you'll end up just throwing it away. Don't buy acer.
Thats a shame, I've always bought/recommended Acer laptops and I think they're quite good for the price. But tbh I've never had to call Acer for anything.....
I deal with Acer at least once a day, tech support and parts lines - Where I work is an Acer reseller/partner. Their non-business support line hasn't been that bad in recent years, they rolled out a lot of changes here that I expect they would make in the US, too. My main concern would be with the build quality of the laptop - I've seen countless come back with cracked plastics after a year or two of normal use - Worse for people who travel with it a lot. Their parts line leaves a LOT to be desired - Most of them are useless, and you're better of with third party solutions. All of this is based on UK experiences, but since neither of us are in their home country, I expect all their foreign systems work on a similar pattern, so when they talk to the head office it's not all different.
Cheap monitors, Reliable monitors, but they don't make anything that I know of that doesn't use a crappy TN panel. So, not really.
