Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I assure you that I am quite earnest in that regard. Acer is perfectly fine and I have never had a bad experience with them and they last more than 2 years if you take care of them properly. That applies to just about everything. I have an Asus Netbook too but that hardly gets any use (maybe because it's running Linux).
If you have a decent knowledge of computers and electronics, that also includes the ability to get the biggest bang for your buck, the ability to fix problems when they come up, or to look for bargains. I have bought many broken blackberries and dead videocards off ebay only to reflow in my toaster to make into perfectly good working electronics. I enjoy doing that. I was raised by my parents to be the biggest penny pincher and patcher-upper you have ever seen. I've even considered turning my bathroom into a clean room to try to dissect a harddrive but that's probably a few years away. Besides, not everyone's time or income is as valuable as yours 
Acers have always met my expectations and have exceeded them on one or two occasions. I don't see anything inherently wrong with them. Maybe Joe Blow consumer will run into some issues but I know how to use and take care of hardware properly and I take pride in saving money and never spending for the biggest shiniest thing that everybody has. If I can't get it cheap enough here, I'd rather build it myself (as I have from barebones Compal notebook chassis I got from Taiwan).
If an Acer really failed me in a big way, I'll be the first one to post back in here. So far, so good. |
So you are used to repairing marginal equipment and performing extensive maintenance to keep your Acer's running, and you consider that perfectly fine. That's great, and I admire the DYI spirit, but its not consistent with the experiences of many people, nor consistent with the expectations of reliability of the average person. For $50 more in the netbook space, you can move from an Acer to an Asus. I think, if you asked around, you'd be very, very hard pressed to find any professional in the business who wouldn't make that recommendation.
You can tease me about my ideas of time wasted as a hidden cost to everyday life, but for ordinary users (which neither you nor me are), its myopic to think that saving money by trading off increased maintenance or care requirements is a good, cost effective solution for casual users. It takes a certain kind of person (you!) to extract not only value, but pleasure, from caring for marginal hardware