Why are acers's so cheap?

JackKelly

Having a bit of a lookaround for good laptop deals and came across acernotebooks.co.uk. The prices seems more than resonable! Especially for the likes of this.

Its seems very resonable for a lappy with
1gb ram,
1.7 clock,
80gb drive,
cd/dvd writer,
14 inch screen and
x700 mobility gpu.

I'm vvvveeerrryyy temped to order one. I'm i missing out on something?

Laguna

Nope, there's nothing wrong with Acer equipment, I've had nothing but great experiences from them, I bought a cheap (€280) but top notch Acer 19" widescreen monitor and the quality is as good as anything you'd see for double the price and in some cases, better!. Acer for the win!..

jimmycrackcorm

At work the only laptops we sell are acers - excellent machines - zero problems and great prices (except to our customers).

FX Meister

If you order the acer I presume you have to get it from the UK? I'm looking for one at the moment and this looks good. I need to get it from the UK so I can avoid paying the VAT on it.

Slutmonkey57b

I think the reason they're cheap is that they don't use matched ram - I was looking at an acer aspire 1642, which I think is the one you've spec'd above - the centrino has an fsb of 533, but they are using 333 ddr2 ram. Had to go onto the acer website and download a pdf to find that out though, almost all their technical descriptions only list "ddr2" ram and don't give the fsb.

pclancy

Acer arent always cheap but like all makes they have budget models they aim at budget buyers. As a whole some of their models seem cheaper but thats mainly due to their wanting to increase market share in europe where they are not as well known as they should be. They are a massive company, much bigger then people over here realise and currently number 3 laptop reseller in the world beating the likes of toshiba and second only to HP and NEC/Samsung. All three of those companies make OEM laptops for other companies such as Dell and FSC and only the fact that Dell has such a massive marketting budget people think they're the best as you cant watch TV, pick up a paper or check your fax machine without seeing dell. You might have used an Acer laptop or Flatscreen and not realised it as it had a differnt make badge on it. They price some of their laptops at the lower end as they're trying to get known over here much better and the "value" market appeals to them. Their laptops (and PCs!) are great, aftersales seems fine and the top end stuff looks fantastic. Beware the very cheap models, some that ive seen and played with have been tacky but you always get what you pay for! They do use cheap parts for the cheaper models but so does every manufacturer to keep costs down.

JackKelly

duno, i was looking through the detailed specs, and ram is 533mhz ddr2 sd so i dont think its the case. I'm so very close to buying it.

How decent is ati's x700 64mb for games. What could i manage with it?

Its a toss up between

the 5550 with a celeron 1.7 with a 14inch screen and a x700 64mb

or

the 5020 with a turin 64 bit 1.6 with a 15.4 inch screen and a x700 128mb

which would you choose?

david

I wouldnt take either, i'd get a pentium M machine, if i had to choose between those two i'd take the Turion, no question.

JackKelly

im retarded. the first one is a pentium-M 1.7 (centrino). For some reason, i wrote celeron.

telecinesk

I have had an acer for 2 yrs and its a Travelmate2000, all singing and dancing budget P4 with 750megs of ram. Its a fast machine alright and internal soudcard is good quality too.

Bad points (Maby only with this one) habit of serious battery drain so even from new I get just 1 hour and thats a struggle. Its heavy too.

Oh and occasionally I suspect due to hardware issues it freezes totally.
Seemed to improve with more ram.

Anyhow,all those bits aside, it was cheap and well worth the money!! It owes me nothing.

FX Meister

Just went to the checkout with this one, http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_1642WLMi_LX.A8605.181/version.asp
They have an option already hi lighted which is a pre delivery inspection which will load any software I buy, make sure the laptop works and will check for dead pixels. Surely I shouldn't have to pay for this? I'd expect that to be done already. I don't want to end up with a laptop that may have problems and have to send it back to the UK. Any advice?

Laguna

Well that's the thing with buying goods with an LCD screen these days (as many PSP purchasers found to their dismay last September).. There's actually a thing in place which states that an LCD product can actually contain a certain amount of dead pixels BEFORE it is classed as faulty, so you could technically have a dirty great big dead pixel in the middle of your screen that is highly visible BUT is still classed as fine as there's only one dead pixel on the screen in total, I believe for an LCD screen to be classed as defective it has to have a large cluster of dead pixels or more than 7 in total.

You're in luck though, you seem to have available to you the option where the retailers check for dead pixels prior to shipping, so they'll find any problems and if they do come acros dead pixels I doubt they'd send that one to you as they realise you'd only send it back to them straight away..

FX Meister

But I think €60 is a rip off for them to do this. I'm not sure now whether to go for it or not.

Laguna

I don't think it is a lot of money to be guaranteed that you'll be getting a screen with no dead pixels. Try bringing a laptop back to the shop (you've bought on the same day), because you've got home to find dead pixels plastered all over the screen. Anyway, don't get it if you think €60 is too much, get a.... 'Dell' instead :rolleyes:

FX Meister

Fair enough, you think it's a good idea I'll go for it. I guess it's harder to send it back to the UK than it is to bring it back to a shop as well.

FX Meister

Changed my mind on paying for that. If there are any dead pixels I get my money back. And i'm concerned by some other issues with the order process. Beside payment options when I select Visa there is a 0.9% sign in brackets. They don't say but I presume they charge me a percentage of the price just for using a credit card. They also have another line in the order summary charging me a surcharge of £4.36 for something they don't explain. They are beginning to remind me of Dell. Maybe I will go for Dell after all.

Prezatch

The surcharge is the charge they make to you when using a credit card. So the £4.36 must equal 0.9%???

FX Meister

Yep, figured that out but was too lazy too reply. It arrived today and I'm super happy with it. The screen is perfect and crystal clear. Love the widescreen. It cost me about €750 as I had the VAT removed buying it from the U.K. The same spec Dell machine was €1200!!

JackKelly

mine's on the way. Also got the vat off so it ended up at around €940.

It's this one. Can't wait to get it.

FX Meister

I'm even using the wireless connection at home now to connect to the net on someone else's network. Beats my ****ty dialup and free too.

shepherd

Komplett.ie sell Acer laptops too if anyone is interested, and doesnt want to pay for delivery to the UK. Not sure how prices compare. Worth a look me thinks...

gamer

They look great to me, 1gig ram dvdrw drive, BUT, IF YOU want to play doom3, hl2 on a laptop you may need 1 with the latest ati 128meg laptop grahics chipset, they seem TO BE LIMITED to 64meg videoram, as far as i can see, otherwise they look grand, but after exchange rate a 700pound sterling pc,is probably gonna cost 1100euros,at least.the dell laptop with 17inch screen widescreen, dvdrw,128meg intel gma is 1,199 ,with 1gig ram,if u have any problem with acer, YOU have to pay,postage to england.So you pays your money and you make your choice.Thats the free market at work.

gamer

I SEE dell usually suppy laptops,with 15inch screen, widescreen, acers are only 14inch in size.

dwaned

How do you manage to buy them without paying the VAT???

ashleygirl

how do you get the vat off when buying from the UK ??

Prezatch

gamer wrote:

They look great to me, 1gig ram dvdrw drive, BUT, IF YOU want to play doom3, hl2 on a laptop you may need 1 with the latest ati 128meg laptop grahics chipset, they seem TO BE LIMITED to 64meg videoram, as far as i can see, otherwise they look grand, but after exchange rate a 700pound sterling pc,is probably gonna cost 1100euros,at least.the dell laptop with 17inch screen widescreen, dvdrw,128meg intel gma is 1,199 ,with 1gig ram,if u have any problem with acer, YOU have to pay,postage to england.So you pays your money and you make your choice.Thats the free market at work.

I presume the Acer you're talking about is the Aspire 5504 and the dell is the Inspiron 9400

First of all £720 (acer) = €1,050. Dell is €1,200
The acer has has a 2 Ghz processor, dell is 1.66
The acer has a 100 GB hard drive, dell has 60 GB

But most of all the dell has integrated graphics! An X700 is far, far superior even if it is a 64 mb card. Dell offer a 256 mb Geforce Go 7800 instead, which would perform better than an X700 but would cost a whopping €460 extra! That shows you how worthless the integrated graphics actually are

I SEE dell usually suppy laptops,with 15inch screen, widescreen, acers are only 14inch in size.

If you bothered to look at an Acer site you would see that most Acers are equipped with a 15 inch screen. The Aspire 5504 is designed for portability, weighing just 2.3 kg's as opposed to the Dell's 3.6 Kg

gamer

I checked page 1 acer website, all 3 laptops are specced 14.1 inch screen, i wud not pay 1000euro, to anyone unless i get at least 15inch widescreen laptop, most dell lappys are now specced 15inch at least in size.
I AM not gopnna read whole website,cos i have no interest in buying pc from uk website, unless its going for 500euro or less.for 1000 euros,i,d expect widescreen at least.I dont think theres much difference in 1.6cpu, or 2.0ghz cpu, if the graphics card is mediocre,i believe you need a fast card to use a fast cpu most effectively.
i,m not trying to say the dell intel integrated graphics is brilliant by any means.

jozi

You get a 14" because you need it, which i assume is the reason the op got one.
If you compare acer to dell laptops of the same price you will notice how acer have better spec. I was close to getting one before xmass but decided to go with a similar spec Asus, for the only reason that the acer i was looking at was getting some bad user experiences where as the asus had many more happy customers.

Never knew acer was one of the top 3 laptop builders. Did they not have a really bad rep some years ago?

JackKelly

gamer wrote:

I checked page 1 acer website, all 3 laptops are specced 14.1 inch screen, i wud not pay 1000euro, to anyone unless i get at least 15inch widescreen laptop,

.......

for 1000 euros,i,d expect widescreen at least.

Em, what are you on about? most laptops acer make are at least 15". The one i chose was one of the few < 15". As was said, people buy small screens because they want to. Not because they are cutting corners price wise. Infact, a lot of the time, a smaller screen will cost you more.

gamer wrote:

I dont think theres much difference in 1.6cpu, or 2.0ghz cpu, if the graphics card is mediocre,i believe you need a fast card to use a fast cpu most effectively.

What? Seriously. What are you talking about? Processors are in no way dependant on graphics cards. That really makes no sense what so ever.

FX Meister

My Acer has a 15 inch widescreen. It cost me €750, I didn't really need the better one costing €900 or whatevedr.

As for people questioning about the VAT. To get the VAT off you need to have a registered VAT number, i.e. to have a business. When you buy stuff here you pay the Vat and then you apply to get it back. If you buy outside Ireland then they remove the VAT straight away.

The OP

Laguna wrote:

There's actually a thing in place which states that an LCD product can actually contain a certain amount of dead pixels BEFORE it is classed as faulty

Aaah yes, a "thing". Such a legal defence - if they sold me a lappy with any dead pixels I GUARANTEE I would get a replacement or my money back. This alleged "thing" doesn't, and cannot, affect your statutory rights as a consumer - bottom line.

pclancy

Im not sure you do have any comeback with that. Every type of TFT or LCD be it a 14" on a laptop, 19" desktop or 32" TV can have a certain number of dead pixels appear before they'll be replaced. This applies across the board of manufacturers. I agree with what your saying rights wise but ive never heard of people getting them fixed until the number of dead pixels has reached the manufacturers levels.

The OP

You keep saying it "can" have a cartain number, and it "applies" accross the board. WHERE does it state this as law? Because if it's not law, it cannot affect your statutory rights. If it's faulty (and dead pixels = faulty), you are entitled to a full refund, and if they argue otherwise, they will end up in the small claims court and lose.

pclancy

Well in that case i honestly dont know. I mean according to each manufacturer saying they wont take back or replace a screen until it has say 7 dead pixels for example. Law wise it would end up depending what the law and the manufacturers agreed was s faulty LCD. A couple of dead pixels doesnt make a screen unusable from their point of view but it might from a certain users point of view. Many people dont even know they have dead pixels.

Heres what tom says:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2003/03/19/penalty/

By the way im not trying to stand up for the manufacturers here, i dont agree that any dead pixles is okay, im just saying what ive seen to be the norm in the industry.

The OP

I just read Tom's page about it. Manufacturer "POLICY" cannot over-rule the law. It's just that simple. The fact that the manufacturers call it a "dead" pixel is enough proof and admittance to make any judge in the small claims court (who are mostly ignorant to technlogy anyway) agree that it's faulty - added to the fact that it IS actually faulty.
Maybe other people would be put off by the "policy" (which is most likely just a deterrant to stop people who don't fully know their rights from returning laptops, monitors, etc), but I know my rights and they wouldn't pull that sh*t on me.
Stand up for yourselves people - store policies and manufacturers policies don't mean squat - the law is there to protect consumers against that type of misdirection.
Anything you buy in Ireland, is covered by the Consumer laws of Ireland - not the manufacturers worldwide "policy". Anything you buy in the UK, etc, is covered under EU consumer law, which will also protect you from "dead" pixels.

Malafus

The OP wrote:

I just read Tom's page about it. Manufacturer "POLICY" cannot over-rule the law. It's just that simple. The fact that the manufactures call it a "dead" pixel is enough proof and admittance to make any judge in the small claims court agree that it's faulty - added to the fact that it IS faulty.
Maybe other people would be put off by the "policy" (which is most likely just a deterrant to stop people who don't fully know their rights from returning laptops, monitors, etc), but I know my rights and they wouldn't pull that sh*t on me.
Stand up for yourselves people - store policies and manufacturers policies don't mean squat - the law is there to protect consumers against that type of misdirection.

It's called "ISO 13406-2" - the standards that must be met by an LCD display, including a limited amount of leeway for dead pixels.

An LCD with a dead pixel or two is still "fit for purpose", still "of merchantable quality", and as long as it is ISO 13406-2 compliant, then it conforms to the description. If you absolutely NEED an LCD monitor without faults, then get one which conforms to ISO 13406-1 - no pixel or sub-pixel faults allowed. You will pay through the nose for it, though.

It's not really fair, but it does keep prices down, somewhat. We are, after all, paying for "potentially" defective displays when we buy ISO 13406-2 compliant monitors.

To regulate the acceptability of defects and to protect the end user, ISO have created a standard for manufacturers to follow. ISO 13406-2 recommends how many defaults are acceptable in a display before it should be replaced, within the terms & conditions of warranty.

All reputable manufacturers conform to and support the ISO 13406-2 standard.

The table below shows the allowable number of malfunctioning pixels that are acceptable, depending on the native resolution of the LCD and allowing for 2 malfunctioning pixels per million pixels.
Native resolution No. of pixels No. of million pixels Acceptable defects
1024 x 768 786,432 0.8 2
1280 x 1024 1,310,720 1.3 3
1600 x 1200 1,920,200 1.9 4
2048 x 1536 3,145,728 3.1 6

The table below shows the allowable number of malfunctioning sub-pixels that are acceptable, depending on the native resolution of the LCD and allowing for 5 malfunctioning sub-pixels per million pixels.
Native resolution No. of pixels No. of million pixels Acceptable defects
1024 x768 786,432 0.8 4
1280 x 1024 1,310,720 1.3 7
1600 x 1200 1,920,200 1.9 10
2048 x 1536 3,145,728 3.1 16

The table below shows the allowable number of malfunctioning sub-pixels that are acceptable within a 5 x 5 block of pixels, depending on the native resolution and allowing for 2 malfunctioning sub-pixels within a 5 x 5 block, per million pixels.
Native resolution No. of pixels No. of million pixels Acceptable defects
1024 x 768 786,432 0.8 2
1280 x 1024 1,310,720 1.3 3
1600 x 1200 1,920,200 1.9 4
2048 x 1536 3,145,728 3.1 6

The above is relevant to Class II LCD panels.

maxheadroom

The OP wrote:

I just read Tom's page about it. Manufacturer "POLICY" cannot over-rule the law. It's just that simple. The fact that the manufacturers call it a "dead" pixel is enough proof and admittance to make any judge in the small claims court (who are mostly ignorant to technlogy anyway) agree that it's faulty - added to the fact that it IS actually faulty.
Maybe other people would be put off by the "policy" (which is most likely just a deterrant to stop people who don't fully know their rights from returning laptops, monitors, etc), but I know my rights and they wouldn't pull that sh*t on me.
Stand up for yourselves people - store policies and manufacturers policies don't mean squat - the law is there to protect consumers against that type of misdirection.
Anything you buy in Ireland, is covered by the Consumer laws of Ireland - not the manufacturers worldwide "policy". Anything you buy in the UK, etc, is covered under EU consumer law, which will also protect you from "dead" pixels.

I'm sorry, but this is complete bull. You are agreeing to buy an LCD panel manufactured to a certain specification. This specification includes the number of stuck pixels and / or subpixels which are acceptable, inlcuding rules for clusters of pixels, spacing, etc. This isn't a 'manufacturer policy' it is an internationally agreed standard. If you don't like it, buy a higher spec panel which will be guaranteed to be stuck pixel free - but you're going to pay more for the higher spec. Something isn't 'faulty' until it is outside the specification under which it was sold. If you buy a monitor and it has stuck pixels, then tough, you haven't got a legal leg to stand on.

EDIT: posted at the same time as Malafus

The OP

maxheadroom wrote:

I'm sorry, but this is complete bull. You are agreeing to buy an LCD panel manufactured to a certain specification. This specification includes the number of stuck pixels and / or subpixels which are acceptable, inlcuding rules for clusters of pixels, spacing, etc. This isn't a 'manufacturer policy' it is an internationally agreed standard. If you don't like it, buy a higher spec panel which will be guaranteed to be stuck pixel free - but you're going to pay more for the higher spec. Something isn't 'faulty' until it is outside the specification under which it was sold. If you buy a monitor and it has stuck pixels, then tough, you haven't got a legal leg to stand on.

EDIT: posted at the same time as Malafus

I'll be getting an Acer in a few weeks. I won't be paying for the gay pixel check. If it has any dead pixels, I GUARANTEE I'll get it replaced for free. I'll keep you posted.

maxheadroom

The OP wrote:

I'll be getting an Acer in a few weeks. I won't be paying for the gay pixel check. If it has any dead pixels, I GUARANTEE I'll get it replaced for free. I'll keep you posted.

You might get it replaced out of an act of goodwill by the company supplying the machine, or through their incompetence in defending their position if it comes to a legal case. You will have no legal right to a replacement though, and if you get it from a company which knows enough about these things to offer a pixel check then you'll probably find yourself out of luck.