zzzaap wrote:How long does the battery last while it's on Powersaver mode? Balanced? Performance?

And where can I get an extended battery?

The Acer website just says "up to 2.5 hours life depending on configuration and usage."

I don't know what's in the picture.

I just know I want to eat it.

Jerboa wrote:

Other than that, it's a decent computer. Although I haven't heard anything good about Acer other than they're cheap. Cheap for a reason?

No, Acer laptops usually have good quality. Acer is now the largest seller of notebooks worldwide. That has to count for something. ;)

Wholesaleforless wrote:Not impressed by the price.

If you shop around, you can find a better brand (HP, for example) with an Intel dual core (rather than AMD) for about the same price (and with a return policy included).

The problem with that is it would be HP... And an Intel Dual Core.... Acer is an over all better brand. This Coming from a someone who does computer repairs on a daily basis.

Intel and Hp ghoulish Acer and AMD are good in my book.

does it come with that delicious looking napoleon??

I know someone who has a 15" Acer Aspire. I have to say I am very impressed with Acer's form factor.

The build quality is superb and I liked the clarity, sharpness and brightness of the display.

The keyboard had a nice feel to it.

His was 4.5 lbs and very thin. That added to my good impression of the Acer.

Lastly, in the 8 months he has had it there has been no problems. And that's with heavy use and lots of toting around the entire U. S. where he has been pretty hard on the machine (e.g., banging it around).

So even though I have owned about 500 notebooks, but never an Acer, I'd say this is a good buy.

I'd get it but about a month ago I bought an HP for $450 on sale at Staples ($650 reg. price). For that price it has impressive specs.

http://tinyurl.com/28ahphq

All in all, for $400 to $600 nowadays you can get really nice notebooks.

Remember when an average notebook was $1500 and one like this would have been $2000?

And I still have in my basement a Samsung 386 notebook I bought in 1995, for $3,500!

Wholesaleforless wrote:Not impressed by the price.

If you shop around, you can find a better brand (HP, for example) with an Intel dual core (rather than AMD) for about the same price (and with a return policy included).

Or an Acer i3. Not as big of a screen.

Acer i3 Same price!

Wholesaleforless wrote:Not impressed by the price.

If you shop around, you can find a better brand (HP, for example) with an Intel dual core (rather than AMD) for about the same price (and with a return policy included).

No, No, HO is not better. HPs are horribly unrealiable (all surveys agree) and Acers are better built IHO and experience. I have the Acer Aspire 11.4in model netbook (using it right now) and it's lovely, with great battery life, screen and it's nicely set up. Looks great too. and light.

HP is too elephantine to make good stuff any more. I'm tempted to replace my HP 17" with this instead.

btflorey wrote:The processor is outdated. So is the DDR2 ram.

DDR2 RAM is not necessarily any slower than DDR3. Indeed DDR3 is often SLOWER! You have to look at the timings etc too, as DDR3 is slower there quite often! DDR3 isn't much of an upgrade until you get to very expensive machines and very expensive RAM.

just a reminder, black friday is right around the corner and the economy stinks= great deals soon?

I got an acer aspire and the power insert broke after 6 months. This could very well have been carelessness. Trying to deal with their customer service was completely unacceptable. I swore off Acer forever.

richardhod wrote:DDR2 RAM is not necessarily any slower than DDR3. Indeed DDR3 is often SLOWER! You have to look at the timings etc too, as DDR3 is slower there quite often! DDR3 isn't much of an upgrade until you get to very expensive machines and very expensive RAM.

Yeah, okay.

This processor has an 1180 benchmark. An i3 has 2300, my nearly 4 year old cheap TL-64 has 1000, my entry level refurbed beater with a T4400 has 1500...

A 1.2 MHz ultra low power consuming celeron single core, in the 11-13 inch notebooks have a 900 benchmark.


Not only that, AMD processors cannot compete in terms of heat, efficiency, battery life, etc...

If you have to have a 17 inch, and blueray...

...you can get this one for an extra 40 bucks at Dell Outlet (refurbed, but it has a full Dell 1 year warranty) by using the 20% coupon.

You have to pay tax, but shipping is free.

$799 - 20% = $639.20

Much much much much better computer for only a little more.


Inspiron 17R
Processor: Intel Core i5-450M Processor (3M cache, 2.40 GHz)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
Single Drive: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470

Mars Black
17.3 inch HD+ WLED
9 Cell Battery, Primary
Bluetooth Wireless Card 365
Integrated 1.3MP Web Camera and Digital Microphone
Keyboard
125V Power Cord
90W AC Adapter
64BIT Operating System
Microsoft Works 9.0

SakarTelephone wrote:If you have to have a 17 inch, and blueray...

...you can get this one for an extra 40 bucks at Dell Outlet (refurbed, but it has a full Dell 1 year warranty) by using the 20% coupon.

You have to pay tax, but shipping is free.

$799 - 20% = $639.20

Much much much much better computer for only a little more.


Inspiron 17R
Processor: Intel Core i5-450M Processor (3M cache, 2.40 GHz)
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
Single Drive: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470

Mars Black
17.3 inch HD+ WLED
9 Cell Battery, Primary
Bluetooth Wireless Card 365
Integrated 1.3MP Web Camera and Digital Microphone
Keyboard
125V Power Cord
90W AC Adapter
64BIT Operating System
Microsoft Works 9.0

"Mars Black?!"

I thought Mars was The Angry RED Planet!?

So far, I like My Dell Inspiron 17", though it is 2 years old, and not as fancy-schmancy as something newer (like the Day After I bought mine!)...but I also like Acer, as I bought one for my niece last Christmas. She has Windows 7, while I am still using Vista!!
I do agree that HP just sucks! I am looking at my Three HP computers here that I hate!
I'm surrounded!
(Oh...and don't you think it's funny that a laptop advertises that it has a Keyboard?!)

Batman4oz wrote:"Mars Black?!"

I thought Mars was The Angry RED Planet!?

So far, I like My Dell Inspiron 17", though it is 2 years old, and not as fancy-schmancy as something newer (like the Day After I bought mine!)...but I also like Acer, as I bought one for my niece last Christmas. She has Windows 7, while I am still using Vista!!
I do agree that HP just sucks! I am looking at my Three HP computers here that I hate!
I'm surrounded!

My brother has the 14 inch version of the 17R.

He loves it. These Dell R's have 2.1 surround sound with subwolfers and are loud as **** and produce remarkable sound for a laptop.

Plus the i5 has a 2500 benchmark compared to this Acer's AMD at 1200.

Why buy a new computer that already has an outdated processor?

This processor's ability was outdated 2 years ago, and wasn't even cutting edge 4 years ago.

sinsemilla wrote:Great computer, although the keyboard lets junk fall through and jam the keys.

I think you are referring to a commonly used and highly-acclaimed feature of this laptop (and many others).

The designers certainly understand your concerns, but with new "CrumbStore" technology, the keyboard allows you to save small amounts of previous snacks and meals so that later - on a plane, in a cab, in the classroom - you can simply turn your laptop up-side-down, shake it a bit, and enjoy a buffet of various cookies, breads, lints, etc.

Thanks to Acer's patented "CrumbStore" technology, you will get over 5% more snack storage than HP's comparable "KeyboardKitchen" and over 12% more than Dell's "WTFLint" clothing recycling program.




...

In all seriousness, I have a Toshiba Satellite, and I know several other people with various models of newer Satellites. They do not suffer from this problem, and while I'm usually a fan of older keyboards -- the click-clack-ier the better -- I find their layout, feel, and sturdiness adequate. Better than my 5-year-old Acer's keyboard, in terms of feel. And like I said, Toshiba's keyboards nowadays don't seem to let any junk in -- something I've lamented in all my previous laptops.

Batman4oz wrote:"Mars Black?!"

I thought Mars was The Angry RED Planet!?

I assume the back-side of Mars is black.

bondsseventy3 wrote:same price at walmart.com but without the blu-ray... but its still an acer......

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-AS7745-5632/14642745

But that Walmart box is sporting an Intel i3 at 2.26 GHz and has a 500 GB hard drive rather than the 320 GB in the Woot offering.

have a Timeline. quality of build is good although the system tipped over from resting on its edge (so a 12" diagonal fall(?) and the motherboard died.

tech support is utterly horrible. main reason i'll probably never buy another acer.

I would have been all over this if the resolution was 1920x1080.

Does anybody here know why the wired LAN port is rated 10/100/1000, but then gives a caveat of "up to 300Mbps"? I've never seen a machine specification which included a disclaimer like that on the network port speed (maybe I'm not looking in the "right" places).

I tried to like this computer and almost gave it a thumbs up... But... then there was the video card... or should I say wasn't. :-/

Can anyone give some insight as to the quality of the ACER brand? I know the brand has been in the industry for a long time, but I have never met anyone who claims to have owned one. If you have owned or still own an ACER notebook, please speak up!

jamesrascal wrote:The problem with that is it would be HP... And an Intel Dual Core.... Acer is an over all better brand. This Coming from a someone who does computer repairs on a daily basis.

Intel and Hp ghoulish Acer and AMD are good in my book.

This is NOT a slam, but an observation: With any given product, repair people only see the broken ones, not the ones that just keep working. It tends to slant your view of things! I found this with camera repair folks as well. My wife has a recent HP that works fine. I have TWO Acer Netbooks that work fine. Tough to draw conclusions.

CaptainWes wrote:This laptop has all of the good stuff and almost none of the bad. Definitely NOT a Huge Problem. I should get one to keep the other 17 inch laptop company.

Nah... its only 5 architectures behind AMD's lastest CPU and they still want $600. You're crazy man!

stevef2222 wrote:just a reminder, black friday is right around the corner and the economy stinks= great deals soon?

The economy stunk last year too, but there were still not any 'zombtastic' deals.

Gianni66 wrote:Can anyone give some insight as to the quality of the ACER brand? I know the brand has been in the industry for a long time, but I have never met anyone who claims to have owned one. If you have owned or still own an ACER notebook, please speak up!

I've got an Aspire 9300 that I bought just short of 4 years ago. (Marginal specs -- AMD dual-core, 4GB RAM, XP Media Center) It's actually what I'm typing this post on.

Everything has been very reliable, but I'm also one of those people who actually takes care of his stuff. (aka no crumbs)

My one gripe -- and the reason I'm hesitating on this deal -- is with their customer support. I knew they had a suspect track record when I bought, but I'm an IT guy by trade, so I went in eyes-wide-open expecting to do all of the maintenance. When my kids managed to break one of the screen hinges, I wrote support knowing I was already out of warranty and expecting to pay for the replacement LCD top shell.

Their response was "Sorry -- we do not produce any parts for this laptop anymore and do not have any available."

I know that 4 years is old in PC terms, but seriously? Don't have ANY parts available? Come on. I've got HPs at work older than that, and we get replacement parts for them on a regular basis.

So... other than cust support, they're fine machines (at least in my experience). Now, if I could just find a replacement LCD top cover on ebay...

sinsemilla wrote:This is my exact same laptop, except with a Blu-Ray player instead of a CD-RW. Bought it a year ago last Black Friday for $100 cheaper.

Great computer, although the keyboard lets junk fall through and jam the keys. I highly recommend the brand and the computer, but this is not a deal on the price.

Maybe with all the money you saved you can buy a nice little tech vaccuum and take care of all those nasty Cheetos crumbs...

radi0j0hn wrote:This is NOT a slam, but an observation: With any given product, repair people only see the broken ones, not the ones that just keep working. It tends to slant your view of things! I found this with camera repair folks as well. My wife has a recent HP that works fine. I have TWO Acer Netbooks that work fine. Tough to draw conclusions.

If Acers sell more or even the same number of units, and more HP's end up in the shop, it's actually very easy to draw conclusions.

wow I can't believe someone said Acers are better than HP. I've purchased and dealt with both at my company, and let me put it this way... I'll never buy an Acer laptop again. At first they seem ok, but they don't last very long at all compared to HPs. All 5 of the Acers I purchased were out of service in half the time as the ASUS and HP laptops I purchased.

With the Blu-Ray, Will it play DVD's as well?

I'm appalled at the screen resolution. I have a 17" notebook from Gateway that runs 1920x1200 that I use for web programming. I can keep the IDE and a web browser open and do easy refreshes to check the code, etc. I'd like to replace it, but I can't find anything similar for under $3000 now.

1600x900? Really? About all it's good for is watching movies. I wish they still made decent resolutions on laptops.

Thesmithsinde wrote:With the Blu-Ray, Will it play DVD's as well?

Yeap!

I was going to report that the one at Tiger Direct is refurbished, but somebody beat me me to it.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one reading the fine print anymore.

Acer sux and the support sux. I would buy a lesser hp computer at the same price just for that reason.

Forget the laptop, where can I get that pastry???

So, just to clarify, the one at TigerDirect...it's a refurb? Am I correct? I'm just not sure.

/s

This is a pretty crappy deal.

-These processors eat batteries.
-DDR2 is outdated
-The blue-ray is nice but the screen is hardly over 720p

This kinda laptop will not be able to hold a charge long enough to watch a movie in HD. If you want a media PC, buy a media pc. You will get a lot more out of it than this. $600 is over priced. The PS3 could do more and those are 300...

I have had my Acer Aspire for over 2 years now, zero problems, unlike my Dell which crapped out twice within the first 12 months.

I am just waiting on an Acer netbook....