Can someone give me an opinion on ths laptop?
Discussion
Hi all,
I dont think I really wanted to start another 'What Laptop' thread, so have been looking around already, read a few ideas, went in to a shop today to play around with a few, so found this one, but have no ideas what reliabilty it has, the features do look very good, for the money anyway... Can anyone give me an educated opinion on this one...
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5103WLM...
Cheers
x
I dont think I really wanted to start another 'What Laptop' thread, so have been looking around already, read a few ideas, went in to a shop today to play around with a few, so found this one, but have no ideas what reliabilty it has, the features do look very good, for the money anyway... Can anyone give me an educated opinion on this one...
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5103WLM...
Cheers
x
If it has the features you're after then I'd say you've done your research (well). 
I take it you want it just for viewing pics, internet, watch the odd film, burn/rip music cds and Office docs? If so then you will be fine with anything around that price. The 2GB of RAM is a bonus though. However any machine you choose that has only 1GB can be upgraded cheaply anyway (approx £60) in the future.
HTH
Richard
I take it you want it just for viewing pics, internet, watch the odd film, burn/rip music cds and Office docs? If so then you will be fine with anything around that price. The 2GB of RAM is a bonus though. However any machine you choose that has only 1GB can be upgraded cheaply anyway (approx £60) in the future.
HTH
Richard
I'd personally still be looking for a machine with XP on it rather than Vista. Vista's such as resource hog and a laptop's not got anywhere near the grunt of a biffy desktop.
Acer are pretty good though, but I have a preference for HP or Toshiba; their after-sales support is far superior if you ever need it and the machines are always well-built.
Acer are pretty good though, but I have a preference for HP or Toshiba; their after-sales support is far superior if you ever need it and the machines are always well-built.
Opinion: Yes, it's a laptop 
You could make a hat from it, or a bird... perhaps some shoes. Sorry been watching far too much airplane
Acer units tend to be much of a muchness in the crowd, so nothing to really scream about. But it should keep trucking for many years to come.
You could make a hat from it, or a bird... perhaps some shoes. Sorry been watching far too much airplane
Acer units tend to be much of a muchness in the crowd, so nothing to really scream about. But it should keep trucking for many years to come.
Edited by ThePassenger on Saturday 21st July 06:33
Thank you, that was what I wanted to hear (apart from the hat bit sarah! my hats are much more funky 
)
I have a Toshiba Sattelite at the mo, had it for 4 years and apart from going through 3 batteries and 3 cords
ops:, its never gone wrong, so going to try and get it on Ebay before its too late!
I hate buying warranties- I dont,. but this one has a 3 year warranty for £60, do you think its worth it?
Also, going to use it for only one game occasionally (sims 2) dont play it often but would like the option to play it... The ATI graphics card is listed as recommended on the sims box, but then so was my last card, and I couldnt play it on this machine, so fingers crossed that will work
Apart from that it will be used for usual, music, pictures, internet.
) I have a Toshiba Sattelite at the mo, had it for 4 years and apart from going through 3 batteries and 3 cords
ops:, its never gone wrong, so going to try and get it on Ebay before its too late!I hate buying warranties- I dont,. but this one has a 3 year warranty for £60, do you think its worth it?
Also, going to use it for only one game occasionally (sims 2) dont play it often but would like the option to play it... The ATI graphics card is listed as recommended on the sims box, but then so was my last card, and I couldnt play it on this machine, so fingers crossed that will work
Apart from that it will be used for usual, music, pictures, internet.
Edited by missdiane on Saturday 21st July 06:56
I have an Aspire 5003 that I got in December, and it's a great laptop. Not had anything go wrong on it or keys drop off or anything.
The shop that I got it from got them in as 256MB DDR as standard and upped them all to 512, I know that doesn't sound much but it does what I want it to do and does it very well, would definately have another Acer Aspire if I needed another lappy
The shop that I got it from got them in as 256MB DDR as standard and upped them all to 512, I know that doesn't sound much but it does what I want it to do and does it very well, would definately have another Acer Aspire if I needed another lappy
Edited by speedchick on Saturday 21st July 07:00
If the budget will allow, look for a laptop that has separate memory for the graphics rather than pinching it from the system RAM.
Most modern machines should be up to playing something like Sims 2, but again, try and find a machine with XP rather than Vista - Vista uses obscene amounts of memory to run all the whizzy graphics leaving not much left over for the programs.
ETA: that second laptop you linked to looks like a pretty good bit of kit. The site also allows you to 'downgrade' to XP for £40 (cheaper than buying your own copy and then installing it - and a lot less hassle too!). http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/xp-downgrade/page.a...
If you put two identical machines next to each other - one with Vista, one with XP - the XP one will be faster. That's progress for you, eh?
Most modern machines should be up to playing something like Sims 2, but again, try and find a machine with XP rather than Vista - Vista uses obscene amounts of memory to run all the whizzy graphics leaving not much left over for the programs.
ETA: that second laptop you linked to looks like a pretty good bit of kit. The site also allows you to 'downgrade' to XP for £40 (cheaper than buying your own copy and then installing it - and a lot less hassle too!). http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/xp-downgrade/page.a...
If you put two identical machines next to each other - one with Vista, one with XP - the XP one will be faster. That's progress for you, eh?
Edited by Funk on Saturday 21st July 11:11
Two Acers at home (one of which is a 5633 as mentioned above), and both seem like solid pieces of kit. However, on both of them the first thing I did was nuke the preinstalled copies of XP along with all the crap Acer added and install a clean copy - with all the Acer crap on there as well, they were both performing more like PCs 1-2 performance steps below the actual hardware specs.
Edited by twister on Saturday 21st July 17:56
twister said:
Two Acers at home (one of which is a 5633 as mentioned above), and both seem like solid pieces of kit. However, on both of them the first thing I did was nuke the preinstalled copies of XP along with all the crap Acer added and install a clean copy - with all the Acer crap on there as well, they were both performing more like PCs 1-2 performance steps below the actual hardware specs.
Do Acer provide the drivers on disc with the machine then? I did the same with my HP laptop when I got it, although there wasn't TOO much crap on it.Edited by twister on Saturday 21st July 17:56
They're on the custom install discs you're encouraged to burn as part of the first power-up setup finalisation, but not in a form that'd be readily useable if you'd ibstalled XP separately. But any drivers that weren't already on the regular XP disc are on the Acer website, so it's not difficult to rebuild the system without using the Acer discs...
Funk said:
Never used the Acer site so don't know whether it's easy to get all the right drivers.
Piece of cake, you tell the site which model family your laptop belongs to (e.g. the 5633 is part of the 5630 family) and it gives you a list of all the drivers, BIOS updates, manuals and utilities for that family. If you'd rather download via FTP, they give you a link for that as well...Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff