laptop reviews

I just bought this laptop and although I like the hardware, it does have a few minor parts. Not a bad thing just things I would like to point out. So I'll try to keep this brief and useful.

Pros
1. Has space for 8gigs of ram. Mine came with four and I already had another four, so now I have a total of 8 gigs on it. Four should work just fine, I just happened to have the extra four. My old laptop only has 2 and I still use it.
2. 1.3 mega pixel camera, seems to work great in low lighting as the lights are low in my room.
3. Nice clear screen and gestures on the pad for zooming in and out on web pages is nice. Still haven't figured out how to use the other gestures.
4. Gigabit network jack, and b/g/n wireless built in.
5. I paid just over 300 bucks which was the reason I got it. It was on special at flys so it was hard to ignore it. So I got this for my dad to use since the old dell died. I also didn't want to spend more than this on a laptop now after I spent over 2k for my old sony years ago.

These are just the main 3 positive points I can think of at the moment but I'll update later. The rest of the hardware seems to work well.

Cons
1. The battery only shows 3 hours. I have it unplugged right now and now it shows 2 hours after about 20 minutes. So this is a big downer if you need to travel.
2. This one has no bluetooth, usb 3.0, or finger reader. I love the finger reader on my sony because I don't have to keep typing the login all the time, but I will not buy another sony again due to their proprietary downloads. Makes it hell trying to keep it updated and they never update anything either.
3. Windows home not pro, but I know it would add more to the price, so just a preference.
4. Weights more than a Toshiba I bought for someone else with the same size screen. Love that light weight on that Toshiba but only had 4 megs maximum.
5. The one other thing that really drives me crazy and that I am not a fan of are the chiclet keyboards. But I'll coin this one today too...this model comes with a mushroom chiclet type of keyboard. Basically each key looks like it stands by itself, and each one is flat. Personally I hate flat keys, I prefer the dented or concave keys so you can actually feel where the key is. I don't know why they keep doing this, but I just thought I point this out because this is why I still prefer to use my desktop over my laptops. So I only use them when I really have to go somewhere.

I only give it 3 stars due to the battery time. One of the most important parts of any laptop, but take that aside and the laptop hardware is pretty good. So even with the cons I would still get one again if I had to, at the lower price that is. As someone else mentioned, technology moves so fast, it's not worth putting more than I need to on these things.

Other
Just uninstall the trial Microsoft office, download Libreoffice and you got an office suite, add your printer and you're good to go.
I have also updated everything on the os and changed the shutdown button to lock, but when I hit the power button, the darn laptop still shutsdown. I accidentally hit the power button on the left corner and shut it down. So yes, I rather these buttons be farther in or middle to prevent accidental power offs. I also don't care for the plug on either side, I like them behind the laptop, but it is what it is. At least this one is near the rear corner and not in the middle like the asus laptop they had on special today.
Here are the Acer specifications...[...]

Update...the power option for the button is under the battery settings, so it can be changed to lock instead of power off in case you hit the power button accidentaly. So this took care of this problem for me.

Update August 25, 2012
Since I started using the laptop and because I carry this with me and move around quite a bit I have found a couple of things that don't work too well if you have to go out to different sites.
1. Having the power button on the top left edge is just bad.
2. Having the power cord on the same top left corner adds to this.
3. The network jack next to the power cord is horrible as I have to use a wire to test things. This is tough since it's next to the power so it's hard to get the wire in and out as I may have to do this a few times at one location and many times throughout the day.
-Now because the power cord is on the left I usually set my computer on the floor on one side and not flat, which means I have to use the right side and the problem is that the cd rom will just pop out as soon as the button hits anything but I have no choice but to use this side. Needless to say the drive came out the first time I was about to do this and almost broke it, so I just use tape over it and don't even close it all the way in since it just po ps out with the lightest touch due to that button... Read more

I bought 2 of these laptops to give to people i tested them before handing them over these laptops it boots very fast and shuts down just as quickly not much bloat ware and comes with Skype and Microsoft office pre loaded received no complaints at all from those that received it just ordered another and 2 different brands ones for testing, for the price its worth it, not much to complain about.

I bought this laptop last Thursday while it was on sale at Fry's Electronics. It's got some flaws but it's great for being 0. I like that it has a numeric keypad which I really missed on my old Dell laptop but that shifts the keyboard about 1 key to the left. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but now I usually have my hands in the right position for typing. It boots up quickly. I did have some lag multitasking - multiple tabs open in firefox, spotify, and a hidden object game running. It only lag while I was searching for music on spotify. Everything worked fine if I'm just streaming music. I love love love the battery life compare to my old laptop. I get at least 4 hours per charge. It also doesn't overheat like crazy (I got burns from my old one). I had really wanted to get a tablet but that's mostly just a bigger version of my smartphone without the phone so since the laptop was on sale I used the money on this instead. It's not that heavy and I u se this on the couch while watching netflix on my TV. In conclusion, I think I made a good purchase and I dont regret not saving my money for a tablet. Will update review if needed.

Update 5/25/12:
Still doing ok. I did notice that it lag a bit when my antivirus was updating but no biggie. I had forgotten to mention I couldn't find a physical volume control button which can be slightly annoying when I decide to change volume in the midst of a full screen game. However, lazy old me finally decide to take a closer look at the keyboard and voila. I just need to hold down the "Fn" key while using the up and down arrows. There's also a nice pause key which is also the Home key. Please do not accidentally disable your touchpad like I did trying out the F buttons. I also tried the webcam. It's really clear even in low lighting not like one I had in the prehistoric ages =]

The touchpad is a little finicky. So there's an up and down scrolling area on the right side of it which works great. There's apparently an invisible left and right scrolling area on the bottom. The problem is that the area isn't clearly define and I could be quite far from the bottom edge when the scrolling kicks in. It made me keep losing my page while reading an e-book on amazon's cloud reader. I guess you can always plug in a mouse if you're doing work where this would be a problem.

Update 6/12/12:
I figured out the touchpad side scrolling issue. Go to the trackpad icon on the taskbar. Under the Elan tab on mouse properties you click options. That will show you the different gestures you can use. Click on edge scrolling and uncheck horizontal.

I haven't had the issue of the cd drive popping out like others have. It's only done it once even with me holding it on the side and sometimes leaning it on it's side. I have to wonder how other people are holding theirs. However, I have accidentally hit the power butt on twice because of it's location in the top right corner near the hinge. It happens when I'm adjusting the position of the laptop on my lap and it's a good spot to grab because it's near the center of gravity.

Battery life is still good with me streaming music. Be aware that the screen is long and skinny compare to other screens that are the same diagonal size. Widescreen looks great on it. Might make it a little harder to buy a case. I was just trying to fit it in my old case but it's too wide to go in so I'll have to shop for a new case.