Choosing an ACER Laptop

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I recently sold my gaming rig as I'm no longer interested in pc gaming. I'm looking to replace this with a good non-gaming laptop. The Acer Gemstone models on http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=959&catid=1201&sortby=priceAsc took my fancy.

I've put a limit for the amount of money I'm willing to spend on a Laptop to around 1000 sterling. Give or Take.

I will be using it mostly for chatting/forum browsing, media, researching and simple schoolwork. As for gaming, I don't play anything too consuming. With World of Warcraft and Guildwars being the most graphical. All in all no great power usage.

That said, however, I'd still like the extra power in processor and VGA just in case. And a minimum of 3Gb Ram.

Any idea what's best?

PS:
I currently have my sights on THIS model. Any ideas?
 
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£1000 for a non gaming laptop....are you nuts.:eek:?

For what you need (assuming you stick to the 'non gaming' aspect, you'd be crazy to spend over £500....

Seems to me, in spending a £1000 your keeping your options open about a return to Pc gaming...:)

Anyway, the model your looking at is more than powerful enough for your needs.
 
haha, true true. I used to have 2 CFX 4870x2 so I may have high expectations even for something that's not a 'gaming system'. My bad ^^

To be more specific I just want a laptop that can play guildwars at good FPS on the highest visual settings without using too much of the laptop's resorces. I just want to be on the safe side.

I liked that particular Acer Model mostly and it's the cheapest 18.4" w/ 4Gb ram. I just want to make sure the VGA and CPU are what I'm looking for. ;)
 
I would be carefull with Acer , I bought an Acer aspire 2920 and had trouble with the battery as in it was stated that it came with a 3.5hr and mine even with wifi off and only word proccessing on average got 1hr 25min use, which took about 10 very flustrating phone calls to Acer tech support before they said that it sounds like there is something wrong with it also battery was was meant to take 2.5hr from dead to charge, mine took 1hr 14min from dead. they just fobbed me off with excuses and incompotence.

Another one is I phoned them up to ask them how much they would charge me to put the bluetooth chip in as I wanted the chip inside the machine as it has got the bluetooth button on the case already. They responded with "give us your laptop and £50 and we will tell you how much it will cost to put in"

All in all the most appalling customer services I have ever come across and so I will never buy anything made by Acer again..
Managed in the end to return laptop and get a refund so now am looking at Toshiba, Sony or HP.

At the end of the day things can go wrong , and when they do you need intelligent and helpfull service , (someone should tell Acer this)
 
I would say get a (Acer) Aspire 7730.
It is just what you need + it is grate for moves, music and 5.1 Audio output.

It only cost £400 aswell
 
Bad customer service? Well that wouldn't matter much if I never need to contact them. Thanks for the warning.

And yes paul, a cheaper Laptop would be great, but I want to make sure that its significanty more powerful than I need.
 
I've had several Acer laptops and all of them have had, or have developed cooling issues, and this is even after heat sinks / fans were cleaned of any dust build up.

5024 - Used to crash frequently due to over heating. Only sort-of fix was to completely disassemble and replace the thermal pads on the CPU and GPU heatsinks. Still is a bit flaky but it can at elast be used now.

7720g - Nice laptop ... apart from the cooling fan running at an annoying loud level the entire time even when the system is under no load at all.

Most of the issues seem to be to do with cooling of the GPU side rather than the CPU side hence my next laptop will be having bog standard integrated graphics instead, (I don't game so gaming performance isn't an issue)
 
if your willing to spend 1k on a laptop, take a look at some Sony FW's. The higher speced ones are circa £1000 and look awesome. But as ever, you are paying for the sony sticker... alternatively, take a look at the new dell studio xps'. That way you can spec up the exact one you want online.
 
Well, thing is i'm not looking for better specs. Just a simpler desktop replacement. One that I can carry once in a while but for the most part it'll stay in the same spot. Although I will want extra power jsut in case.

The reason I chose that particular Acer model is that it has an 18.4" FullHD screen, full-sized keyboard, bluray player, 4Gb ram, good harddrive and a lot of connections.

The only downside is that it's slightly heavier than other laptops but as I said, I won't be carrying it much.
 
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If you're looking at extended specs and budget, could always look at the customisable OcUK jobs, as you could customise it towards more storage/RAM in your budget whilst still keeping a basic GPU. Up to you quite what you want really. If you ARE going to game I'd suggest ATI3650/NV 8600 as a mimimum. 9600, 4650, and further on the 8800/9800/4850 are all significantly stronger.

Inside 1k you'd be able to get all of those except likely the 8800, or 4850 setups, depends on what screen size you want too.
 
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Steer clear of Acer, horrible warranty service (3 months to "fix" (stopped working again a week or two later) a monitor classifies as horrible in my experience).
 
Acer are absolutley Brilliant at not working!
and thats not just the laptops :D mate had 1 and it spent the best part of it's first year with acer!

Barge & Pole spring to mind.
 
Acer are absolutley Brilliant at not working!
and thats not just the laptops :D mate had 1 and it spent the best part of it's first year with acer!

Barge & Pole spring to mind.

But then i can come in and say my Acer 5051, the cheapest, most basic bog standard model in their range when launched has worked flawlessly in the 2 yrs i've had it...in that time, its been in use for at least 4hrs a day, been through countless re-formats, been abused as a cheap media centre, bashed as a basic gaming rig....and it hasnt missed a beat.

Dosent matter which make or model is recommended, someone will have a brilliant story about how its been the best thing they have bought, whilst at the same time, someone will say they would never buy from that company again as their products are utter crap.

Buying a complex electronic item from ANY manufacturer, at the end of the day, is a lottery as to whether you have problems or not.
 
Sometimes you buy an item and it turns out to be faulty,
Acer customer support is a joke and from what I,ve read they are not too good at fixing things either.
Point is, Acer customer support SUCKS:eek:
 
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