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Well, I have been looking for a good laptop for a while now and have stumbled on this Acer Aspire AS4520-5464. My question is what is your opinion of this particular model and the maker, Acer. I have never owned a laptop and all that I have used are dell and toshiba. I would want a Mac, but the prices are just way too rich for my blood. The laptop would be used mainly for websurfing and storing my digital pics. My girlfriend and I are going to travel and I won't be able to tote around my PC so I figured it's time to get one.

If you have any other laptops to look at, please put up a link.

The things that I would really like are a fast processor, at least 2 gigs of RAM, and large storage for media. My price range is $400 to $600, although the less expensive, the more money we will have for getting around.

Any help would be great.

Acer?

First, avoid Acer like the plague. They're about on par with Dell in terms of quality, though probably less. If all you need it for is websurfing and pictures, you should look into a netbook. There's a fairly good selection of sub-$400 netbooks out there that should meet your needs. You won't get many with large storage, but sink in $90 on a 1tb external drive and you should be set.

The Lenovo Ideapad might be up your alley. It's $300 and offers 160gb of hdd space. It only has 1gb of ram, but honestly for your needs that should be more than sufficient since you don't need a ton of power for web-browsing and picture editing.

I have an Acer myself and I don't have any problems with it. If you are worried about warranty, I believe Acer sells extended warranty for 3 years. The 4720 is an old model though, try looking for the 4730, 4530 or 4736 Aspire models.

Also if portability is an issue if you're traveling, how about an Asus 1000HE/HA netbook? It's small, easy to carry around, has around 160GB hard drive for storing your pics and I believe you can upgrade the RAM to 2GB.

I will never buy Acer again after the last Acer laptop had a lot of problems with the CD drive, the repair work took ages and finally, the electric connector just melted. Yes, that's right, it melted.

Yeah, that was the main reason for the post. I'm not a fan of buying brands I'm not familiar with. The thing that got my attention on this was that for the price, it seemed to cover the things i wanted. Like the premium on vista. From what I understand, if you buy vista now, you get a free update to windows 7, so long as it's one of the more expensive ones. Also, the screen is a good size and the real winner is the fact that it has a disk drive. I like the idea of the netbooks but having to buy a external disk drive AND a external hard drive turns me off to the idea. I wanted a smaller screen(I don't know how people walk around with the massive 17 inch, 8 pound monsters) but 10 inch is too small, considering that it will be my only screen to edit photos on. And the 2 gigs of ram was for the part of me that was entertaing the idea of loading a couple older games to pass the time incase we get stuck inside because of bad weather. Any other suggestions?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... -%20%24500 Newegg has a shitload of deals on laptops in the sub $500 range that still have regular screens if you really can't handle a 10". The Lenovo ones are fairly solid, and of course there's the Toshibas and a Gateway. I'd suggest avoiding the HPs and Acers, though.

You get what you pay for.

phongn wrote:You get what you pay for.

That phrase has absolutely less relevance to computers than any other industry. Sonys are utter shit but they still charge out the nose for them.

General Zod wrote:That phrase has absolutely less relevance to computers than any other industry. Sonys are utter shit but they still charge out the nose for them.

In this instance it's obviously referring to the low-end computer linked to in the OP.

Ok, so after looking around and seeing what there was, I think that I'm gunna give up the idea of a optical drive and going for a netbook and external hard drive idea.

This Lenovo caught my eye. It's about the same price as the one I have in the OP. Looks pretty sweet to me.

And the second one that I was looking at(something that I just came across) is a Samsung. This is looking pretty sweet as well.

Now, same thing as the OP. What are your thoughts on these two? The screen is just at the lower limit of the size that I want. I'm willing to do without the disk drive. The small size is a plus as well as the fact that they both have near full sized keyboards, if not full sized. The one thing that I have to ask about is the processors, for I have no idea which is better, if either one of these is really better than the other. Your thoughts?

I'm not really familiar with the VIA nano, so I'd say go with the Lenovo that has the Atom. Atoms at least are fairly standard for netbooks, and Lenovo is pretty solid all in all.

I have been running my Acer laptop for the last three and a half years. I picked it up in November of 2005 and have been running it since then. It has worked absolutely fabulously for me. I did have to get it cleaned out and have the heatsink reseated because of age (laptops do age quickly in that regard), and since I have upgraded it with more RAM and a new HD. But its worked wonderfully. The only problem with it is it won't boot if a Joystick is left plugged in. Outside of that it has worked like a dream. I bought a 3 year warranty on it and never needed to call once. As others have commented, you do get what you pay for. Any cheap laptop is to be considered suspect of long term reliability. But to outright write off a manufacturer is not smart. People just blasted Dell, except several of their laptops are stupidly reliable. The military loves using them in their Net Caffee's in Iraq and Kuwait. Do your homework and check out reviews on the laptop.

Alyeska wrote:I have been running my Acer laptop for the last three and a half years. I picked it up in November of 2005 and have been running it since then. It has worked absolutely fabulously for me. I did have to get it cleaned out and have the heatsink reseated because of age (laptops do age quickly in that regard), and since I have upgraded it with more RAM and a new HD. But its worked wonderfully. The only problem with it is it won't boot if a Joystick is left plugged in. Outside of that it has worked like a dream. I bought a 3 year warranty on it and never needed to call once. As others have commented, you do get what you pay for. Any cheap laptop is to be considered suspect of long term reliability. But to outright write off a manufacturer is not smart. People just blasted Dell, except several of their laptops are stupidly reliable. The military loves using them in their Net Caffee's in Iraq and Kuwait. Do your homework and check out reviews on the laptop.

Why not? If a manufacturer constantly makes shit I have absolutely no qualms dismissing them out of hand. With the sheer amount of weird proprietary hardware that Dell uses, back-asswards drivers and sometimes strange hardware configurations, they're definitely not someone I'd recommend at all. I can think of a few other manufacturers I'd blast off the bat, but like I said, if a company consistently makes shit then I don't see why they can't be blasted.

General Zod wrote:

Alyeska wrote:I have been running my Acer laptop for the last three and a half years. I picked it up in November of 2005 and have been running it since then. It has worked absolutely fabulously for me. I did have to get it cleaned out and have the heatsink reseated because of age (laptops do age quickly in that regard), and since I have upgraded it with more RAM and a new HD. But its worked wonderfully. The only problem with it is it won't boot if a Joystick is left plugged in. Outside of that it has worked like a dream. I bought a 3 year warranty on it and never needed to call once. As others have commented, you do get what you pay for. Any cheap laptop is to be considered suspect of long term reliability. But to outright write off a manufacturer is not smart. People just blasted Dell, except several of their laptops are stupidly reliable. The military loves using them in their Net Caffee's in Iraq and Kuwait. Do your homework and check out reviews on the laptop.

Why not? If a manufacturer constantly makes shit I have absolutely no qualms dismissing them out of hand. With the sheer amount of weird proprietary hardware that Dell uses, back-asswards drivers and sometimes strange hardware configurations, they're definitely not someone I'd recommend at all. I can think of a few other manufacturers I'd blast off the bat, but like I said, if a company consistently makes shit then I don't see why they can't be blasted.

And some of their laptops are genuinely well designed. Some of the Lattitude laptops are solid as a rock when it comes to reliability and durability. When it comes to laptops, your always going to have odd drivers and hardware configurations. To write off an entire brand and refuse to consider it when there are good options is just asinine.

Alyeska wrote: And some of their laptops are genuinely well designed. Some of the Lattitude laptops are solid as a rock when it comes to reliability and durability. When it comes to laptops, your always going to have odd drivers and hardware configurations. To write off an entire brand and refuse to consider it when there are good options is just asinine.

If their good laptops are the exception to the rule, then as far as I see it it just makes sense to not even take a look at them when there are plenty of other companies with better track records.

General Zod wrote:

Alyeska wrote: And some of their laptops are genuinely well designed. Some of the Lattitude laptops are solid as a rock when it comes to reliability and durability. When it comes to laptops, your always going to have odd drivers and hardware configurations. To write off an entire brand and refuse to consider it when there are good options is just asinine.

If their good laptops are the exception to the rule, then as far as I see it it just makes sense to not even take a look at them when there are plenty of other companies with better track records.

Do you even realize how stupid you sound? You acknowledge they make good laptops, then just toss them aside for no good reason.

Alyeska wrote:

General Zod wrote:

Alyeska wrote: And some of their laptops are genuinely well designed. Some of the Lattitude laptops are solid as a rock when it comes to reliability and durability. When it comes to laptops, your always going to have odd drivers and hardware configurations. To write off an entire brand and refuse to consider it when there are good options is just asinine.

If their good laptops are the exception to the rule, then as far as I see it it just makes sense to not even take a look at them when there are plenty of other companies with better track records.

Do you even realize how stupid you sound? You acknowledge they make good laptops, then just toss them aside for no good reason.

Do you even read what I write before you spew bullshit? Having a track-record of making shitty products and the occasional halfway decent machine is not "no good reason". Especially considering the amount of time it takes to dig through their mountains of shit before finding the occasional non-junker.

General Zod wrote:Do you even read what I write before you spew bullshit? Having a track-record of making shitty products and the occasional halfway decent machine is not "no good reason". Especially considering the amount of time it takes to dig through their mountains of shit before finding the occasional non-junker.

Disregarding known good laptops because OTHER laptops didn't work well does not qualify as a good reason to ignore the known good laptops. Rather then toss out the whole fucking thing, you can do some RESEARCH which anyone buying a laptop should be doing ANYWAY. Oh, you think Dell has a shitty record and the vast majority of their equipment sucks. So you recommend to someone else, without posting actual evidence of suckitude, that they should stay away from every Dell laptop regardless of it actually being good or bad. I'm going to say that LT Dan should get the laptop that suits him for the price, and do his research on what is available. If there are some decent Dell laptops, consider them. If there is a killer deal on an Acer laptop, get it. If the best laptop you can find is from Asus or HP, get it. I am not going to write off an entire brand because some of their equipment sucks. Your hate of Dells is so great that you would tell someone to forgo them entirely regardless of their actual worth. You've already made that abundantly clear. You don't actually care if the laptop is good or not.

Alyeska wrote:

General Zod wrote:Do you even read what I write before you spew bullshit? Having a track-record of making shitty products and the occasional halfway decent machine is not "no good reason". Especially considering the amount of time it takes to dig through their mountains of shit before finding the occasional non-junker.

Disregarding known good laptops because OTHER laptops didn't work well does not qualify as a good reason to ignore the known good laptops. Rather then toss out the whole fucking thing, you can do some RESEARCH which anyone buying a laptop should be doing ANYWAY.

Because track-records apparently don't amount to anything in your world.

Oh, you think Dell has a shitty record and the vast majority of their equipment sucks. So you recommend to someone else, without posting actual evidence of suckitude, that they should stay away from every Dell laptop regardless of it actually being good or bad.

What evidence? Besides the history of using bizarre proprietary components, weird drivers, retarded technical support for end-users and bogging down their machines with tons of bloatware? There's literally mountains of evidence against Dell. But obviously that shouldn't affect someone's opinion on individual machines.

I'm going to say that LT Dan should get the laptop that suits him for the price, and do his research on what is available. If there are some decent Dell laptops, consider them. If there is a killer deal on an Acer laptop, get it. If the best laptop you can find is from Asus or HP, get it. I am not going to write off an entire brand because some of their equipment sucks. Your hate of Dells is so great that you would tell someone to forgo them entirely regardless of their actual worth. You've already made that abundantly clear. You don't actually care if the laptop is good or not.

Thanks for demonstrating that you don't actually read what I say. Perhaps you'll notice I wasn't blasting just some of their equipment, but the overwhelming majority of it. I've had to put up with a shitload of Dells and every single fucking one has some weird proprietary component or drivers that fuck with any changes you might want to make to the system, this isn't some masturbatory us vs them fantasy, so you're damn right I'll dismiss the entire company. But clearly my first hand experience with them isn't important.

If you get a netbook go for one with the biggest keyboard you can get.

General Zod wrote:What evidence? Besides the history of using bizarre proprietary components, weird drivers

Speaking of which. My first (and only) Dell had an ATI Radeon Card in it. Now; you'd think that'd be great to keep updated?

NOOOOOOOOO. It was some proprietary dell-only card, which could only be updated from drivers on Dell's site; which never were updated at all.

MKSheppard wrote:

General Zod wrote:What evidence? Besides the history of using bizarre proprietary components, weird drivers

Speaking of which. My first (and only) Dell had an ATI Radeon Card in it. Now; you'd think that'd be great to keep updated?

NOOOOOOOOO. It was some proprietary dell-only card, which could only be updated from drivers on Dell's site; which never were updated at all.

It seems that a lot of laptop video cards are like that. My Acer has an ATI integrated card that had to be updated from Acer.

Alyeska wrote:It seems that a lot of laptop video cards are like that. My Acer has an ATI integrated card that had to be updated from Acer.

Except this wasn't a laptop. It was a fucking Pentium IV Desktop in the summer of 2001!

MKSheppard wrote:

Alyeska wrote:It seems that a lot of laptop video cards are like that. My Acer has an ATI integrated card that had to be updated from Acer.

Except this wasn't a laptop. It was a fucking Pentium IV Desktop in the summer of 2001!

Sounds like a custom ATI integrated setup.

Alyeska wrote:Sounds like a custom ATI integrated setup.

Except it wasn't. It was a PCI Radeon which was virtually similar to the same model sold in stores, right down to the model number; except it would only take Dell-only drivers.

That card was so useless because of it's crippled ability that I never kept it after replacing it with a GeForce; I tossed it in the bin.