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Posts Tagged ‘acer’

The Acer is no longer with us…

June 14th, 2008 by Connor McBrine-Ellis | 13 Comments | Filed in Offline, Reviews

UPDATE: I bought the computer- it really lives up to the expectations!

I returned my Acer Extensa yesterday. I’m sure you’ve read about my share of issues with it, and I returned it, because the chance to return it to costco (I had 6 months to return it there) was drawing to a close. 

We did have many issues with it – even though the hardware inside of it was great quality – an ATI Radeon 2400 XT video card which is quite high-end, there was a good hard drive and lots of ram. The problem was, the cooling was awful, and the screen and body of the computer were cheaply made. I tried to hold onto it for as long as I could and considered sending it in for repairs but then I had to scratch that because, if I sent it there, what would happen would be that it would probably say “there’s nothing wrong with the computer” and then there would be a huge waste of gas and fuel and money spent on buying sufficient postage, anyways.

So now I’m searching for a new laptop. I’m looking into HP – perhaps an HP Pavilion dv6753ca “entertainment PC”. It has similar stats, and is at a similar price-point. A bonus is that it has a LightScribe drive which is great for all you people who like being creative – me included. It’ll be great for the Kunadiuns’ next movie.

Click here for an extremely high resolution photo of my laptop.

Here are some other “Plusses” over the Acer:

  1. Some sort of Remote Control is included – it sounds good, because I use my computer to download TV shows off of BitTorrent and then I hook the computer up to the TV to play them. I think that the Remote will have a pause and play button on it, hopefully, which will save me from getting up and off of the couch and running over to the Laptop to pause the show.
  2. The awesome volume controls on the top of the keyboard – I love these!!! They are great, and you need just bearly to tap them lightly to make the sound go up and down – not push down hard – thinking about that though, you could accidentally brush against them and lose your spot in a movie.
  3. HP webcams are Great – end of story
  4. Good reliable Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection & Bluetooth™. The Acer didn’t have bluetooth, which is pretty essential to most people, so this is a definite plus.
  5. Mouse buttons are more soft and aesthetic-feel to click and don’t make such a loud annoying noise. The ones on the extensa made a huge noise when clicking.
  6. Two headphone ports – great if you and a friend are listening – much better than sharing a pair of earphones.
  7. HDMI output – this kind of video output it commonly only seen in $1000+ laptops, so this is a huge improvement over the DVI-D output that was in the Acer.
  8. HP QuickPlay media player software and its dedicated menu controls, music and DVD buttons – the only problem is, I hear, is that the “Direct” option of QuickPlay that allows you to watch DVDs without actually even starting up the computer.
  9. Apparently, it has Altec Lansing speakers – a great improvment over the awful ones in that Extensa.
  10. There is more room to expand the memory to 4 GB

Overall, this is a great laptop. I think I might get it. Tell me what you think, readers.

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Acer Dual-booting Problems!!!

January 11th, 2008 by Connor McBrine-Ellis | 4 Comments | Filed in Offline, Tech

Ok, ok, I was really stupid! Don’t go posting comments saying how stupid I was!

So here’s the story. I get my Acer Extensa 5420 at Costco, and come home and open it up, and I get all excited, and I’m happy! So then about a week later, I accidentally delete the partition that Vista’s in when dual-booting XP in order to use legacy apps (STUPID ME!). So I try and get a recovery CD from Acer because my built-in eRecovery option wouldn’t work. Here’s a letter I wrote to Acer explaining what happened from then on:

To Whom It May Concern:

About a week after I got my Extensa computer, I wanted to use the built-in eRecovery feature that my laptop was supposed to come with. So when it was starting up, I pressed alt+f10, as I was directed to by the laptop’s manual, but this didn’t work. So, I called acer’s “Customer Interaction Centre”, and I had them send me some recovery CDs. This was when the problems began. Here’s a list of the issues I had with these first cds:

- The CD’s operating system (my computer came with Vista Home Premium – the cd’s recovery os was Vista Home Basic)
- The CD’s language (my computer came with english as it’s main language, but the recovery cd installed spanish, and I couldn’t understand what the computer was saying)
- Wouldn’t recognise a whole bunch of my hardware – including my graphics card, my dvd drive, my card reader, and my wireless internet connection.
- The invoice said my cds were french, but on the cds themselves they said they were spanish. so the invoice was incorrect.

I called in to the customer interaction centre, and gave my order number, and the person there said that the person who had sent me the first set of the disks had, #1 – sent me ones that weren’t designed for my computer, and #2 – they were the wrong language (i already knew this), and finally #3 – they were the wrong operating system (i ALSO already knew this. He said he’d resend the disks.

Now, I have a week of wasted time and money because i have NO access to my computer whatsoever, while I wait for the cds to arrive. The person I was talking to on the phone said they would arrive in two business days!

Finally, after a week’s wait, my cds have arrived to me, and I start using them, only to find out that they are FRENCH! Maybe the person thought that I wanted french cds, because on the first invoice I recieved it said Vista home basic french, whereas the cds were in actuality spanish.

I would like it if someone could kindly send me some recovery cds, with windows vista home premium designed for my acer extensa 5420, IN ENGLISH, please!

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance,

Connor McBrine-Ellis

No one bothered replying for a day, so I get impatient and call Acer’s Customer Interaction Centre, and I get a really helpful person who told me that he’d send me the right CDs, en anglais, s’il vous plait!

I’ll update you on whether these CDs were actually english when they arrive. They’ll arrive in about 3-7 business days because they use FedEx express shipping.

Connor :p

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