MBP vs Acer

[Mus]

I was considering buying a 2.2GHz MBP for my gf and initially running Windows on it.

As a last minute reassurance why wouldn't I want to get this:

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version.asp

Seems to have an almost identical spec and is a whopping £500 cheaper plus I don't have to buy Windows for it.

Ta

[netdog]

Um....because it will only run Windows and is much thicker? If you don't want a Mac, then sure, get an Acer. If you want to run OS X, I am afraid that this Acer is not the machine for you.

[bartelby]

Why not buy the MBP and use Mac OS X?

If you're only going to use Windoze, save money and get the Acer.

The biggest thing about Apple computers is the OS. If you're not really going to use it don't get it.:)

[Mus]

Well, I guess primarily I was wondering why the Mac hardware was sold so much dearer for the same spec.

[AdeFowler]

Well, I guess primarily I was wondering why the Mac hardware was sold so much dearer for the same spec.
A question that's asked time and again around here. The answer?... because they can I guess; Apple sold over a million laptops in the last quarter.

[Mus]

...because they can.

OK, a fair enough answer.

Yes, the idea was to move over slowly to OSX but that's also a substantial investment in software plus a cinema display. Just questioning ourselves whether it's really worth it.

[Jamiephofe]

OK, a fair enough answer.

Yes, the idea was to move over slowly to OSX but that's also a substantial investment in software plus a cinema display. Just questioning ourselves whether it's really worth it.

I guess that would depend on the performance of Leopard when it's released. If Tiger is anything to go by then apparently Leopard will run fine on older machines, which sounds better than Vista which I hear is a total system resource hog. Surely that's reason enough. I guess it depends whether the programs you need run on OSX, and whether it runs them better than XP/Vista.

[XheartcoreboyX]

Whatever you do..dont you ever buy Acer!!!
its the worst company ever..me and all my friends used ti have problems with them and their stupid builtin cameras...they are very cheap looking and feel and the buttons get stuck and faulty easily....

[ezekielrage_99]

At least it's not another Dell vs Apple debates......


If you want Windows then get the Acer, I have had an Acer laptop before and there is a £500 difference for a very good reason, Acer is rubbish.

I now have a Macbook (for home) and a Macbook Pro (for work), you cannot compare the quality of the Apple to Acer, the Apple laptop is superior in every respect to hardware, software, build and features.

If you get an Acer you will get 12 months out of it then it will be a present for Oscar the Grouch, they don't last.

[Mus]

Vista.

Actually, you're right, I have no wish to go anywhere near it.


OK, thanks for the replies guys. Will mull it over.

[Wronsky]

I agree with the above posters. Acers are very flimsy machines. My girlfriend has one and it's been a pain in the butt. The customer service is okay but nothing special.

Apples have always seemed to me to be sturdy machines and I have given my old Powerbook G4 a lot of punishment. The support has always been really good, even though they don't have the manpower to send a technician in person (Dell will sometimes do this).

Dells tend to have a good customer service. The business class models tend to feel sturdier than the consumer models. I think both models feel kinda flimsy, but you can definitely tell that the business models feel sturdier. The support with Dell (my mom, my sister, and my best friend has Dells) seems to be really good. Remember if you get one of the business class machines you'll end up paying a premium though probably not quite as much as the MBPs

Thinkpads are my favourite non-Mac, I had one from work for a while. They are butt ugly, but this doesn't bother me because they are sturdy. I never had to use the support from them, but I can't imagine it would be too bad. Again, these you will pay a premium for over an Acer or a consumer system.

So, yes you do pay a premium for the Apple brand, but you're also paying for a sturdier laptop. The better Dells and the thinkpads will cost more than the Acer but again you're paying for a bit more quality. If you just want a Windows machine I would look at one of the higher quality machines, especially if you plan on toting the machine around everywhere.

Wronsky

[Blacky]

1) slower cpu, 2ghz vs 2,2 or 2,4ghz
2) lower screen res (1280*800) means less screen real estate, more suitable for max 13" laptops if you ask me
3) it'll be much thicker than a mbp, lots of connectors, mbp doesn't have less connectivity its just hidden better, like the dvi can go to vga/svideo/composite, the line out is also a digital out etc, it even offers a firewire 800 port over the acer, ok I'il give you the fact that it has no card reader but does that really matter?

And off course the greatest advantage os x over vista is priceless.

[Sutekidane]

Let me just warn you, they sell that laptop at bestbuy and after buying one and returning it, it's the ugliest laptop I've ever seen. It doesn't look so bad in the photos, but when you see it up close, you'll understand.

[Twyntub]

Seems to have an almost identical spec and is a whopping £500 cheaper plus I don't have to buy Windows for it.

Ta

From what I can tell this machine is 43mm thick vs 25mm thick for the MPB, with the 8 cell battery weighs in at 3.17kg vs 2.45kg for what will probably be much less battery life. The Acer is also slightly wider and almost 30mm deeper. Oh, and the screen is only 1280x800 not 1440x900, the camera is 0.3 megapixel vs the higher res of the MPB, it's got a slower processor (2GHz vs 2.2 GHz - which probably accounts for most of the difference in price). And, of course, it's an Acer...

In the UK, most Macs spec for spec are either cheaper or on a par with PCs. With a Mac you get everything - battery life + weight + size + design + performance + build quality (yes, I do mean that). Combined with the switch to Intel, this probably explains why almost all the Windows developers I know have switched to the Mac. :p

PCs on the other hand have a much lower entry level.

BTW - that Acer - it doesn't exactly look a thing of beauty... my two year old has a really thick and bright orange "my first computer" that looks more stylish... :D

[MacBook Jack]

ha ha ha ha ha ha

mbp vs acer

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

"With Acers new style glossy black curved lid and sleek white interior a new era in laptop design has begun"

[doctor pangloss]

The Acer is the best selling laptop here in Thailand. They aren't bad...Except for the windows issue. I have to borrow a pals Acer now and then to run some GPS apps. I have to spend nearly an hour each time simply delousing the Acer of all the trojans and worms.
I'll run the Acer side by side my 4 year old PB and the new Acer very slow in comparison.
I'm tempted to buy an Acer just because they are cheap and I need to run windows apps. But the Acer feels cheap compared to my PB. And there simply is no comparison between OSs. Windows is pure shiete.
What pisses me off is Apple hasn't made a replacement for the 12" PB.

I'm considering buying a Lenovo thinkpad 60Xs (http://www.superwarehouse.com/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X60s_1702/170237U/p/1482152), partitioning the drive and run OSX on one side.

[markfc]

I was considering buying a 2.2GHz MBP for my gf and initially running Windows on it.

As a last minute reassurance why wouldn't I want to get this:

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version.asp

Seems to have an almost identical spec and is a whopping £500 cheaper plus I don't have to buy Windows for it.

Ta

Good luck with Vista there me old chum.

[iW00t]

By the way a $199 laptop will be released by Asus soon
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/

[semaja2]

Remember Apple does not bloat their installs with spyware and other crapware which Acer and those alike do which gets them more money and hence offer it cheaper.

Where as Apple gives you no crapware and equal programs then that given on windows IMO, as well as the apple designs are so much sexier :P

[jellomizer]

Go try both of them out...

Apples are usually better engineered, with those small details that you normally don't think about when you buy a laptop. The MBP are one of the best laptops you can get for size/performace ratios The Acer is big, this may not sound like a lot right now but when carrying it around having it thin so you can carry you Laptop and some books too, thin really helps...

Next there is the trackpad. The MBP trackpad allows you to scroll left and right by using your two fingers on the pad, I don't know about the acer. But that is very handy for me. Also using a two finger click is easer for a right click then using the 2 button track pad.

The magsafe power adapter is actually very cool and I don't know how I lived without it... (well I do I had to replace 3 power adapters on my old Powerbook, because the connector has broken) but it is also real easy to plug in in a hurry or in the dark it just snaps in place.

Locations of the ports... Sometimes Laptop companies get kinda stupid on where they put their ports. You sometime need to move around the power cord to plug in a USB Device in the back or or hunt and peck until you can find your eathernet port to plug in.

Keyboard layout. I don't know about Acer but toshiba had some laptops with a Crazy Keyboard layout Tilda ~ was in a odd location so were the alt and control... This is one of the things it is really up to your determination if you like it better or not.

The display like before you should look at both of the displays and see who you like better.

Cool factor... Apples are cooler... I get random people when I am working on site stop in and say how cool my laptop is, and ask me what brand it is (They normally cant see the apple logo on it)

Flexibility... OS X + Parallels = Being able to run 99.9% of all the software that is out there... I was able to run Windows programs, Linux Programs, FreeBSD programs, Solaris x86 Programs heck I even got Plan 9 to run in Parallels... Oh yeah and Mac Programs as well. At work I often run windows in paralles on a seporate display and hook up and attach a USB keyboard and USB mouse just to Parallels so it is like having 2 computers right next to each other... It is nice.

[jellomizer]

I would stay away from Vista until SP1 is released... I haven't heard anything good about it from normal users.

[blurb23]

Do NOT buy that Acer under any circumstances.

As far as it's hardware-price ratio, it's unbeatable. It's got awesome hardware for a great price.

BUT it's build quality, customer support, etc is absolutely atrocious.

[techlover828]

eww that thing is ugly, save yourself from vista and go with the MBP

[maccompaq]

I was considering buying a 2.2GHz MBP for my gf and initially running Windows on it.

As a last minute reassurance why wouldn't I want to get this:

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version.asp

Seems to have an almost identical spec and is a whopping £500 cheaper plus I don't have to buy Windows for it.

Ta

I have heard so many people complaining of Acer quality as well as poor customer service.

[katorga]

My previous personal laptop was an Acer 8104 (2Ghz Pentium M, ATI X700). I'll never buy another Acer based on my experiences....

1. Ran insanely hot 97C or higher under load, and heat radiated up through track pad. Loud-ish fan on every 3 minutes or so.

2. Power issues. I had to have the system board/power supply replaced 3 times. Memory failed once. Repair service took forever and each required multiple tries to fix the laptop.

3. LCD...uneven lighting and grainy.

4. Silver paint discolored, wore off on wrist areas.

5. Weak support, no driver updates, bad ACPI implementation that hosed Linux installs

6. Crashes more often than is comfortable.

[aquajet]

Don't forget the iLife factor as well, along with the other third-party bundled applications. Does the Acer have something similar?

Why don't more people address this point? I simply don't understand how so many people completely ignore the features which are included with the iLife suite when it comes to comparing a cheap PC and a Mac.

[Twyntub]

Cool factor... Apples are cooler... I get random people when I am working on site stop in and say how cool my laptop is, and ask me what brand it is (They normally cant see the apple logo on it)


Hey - you're not wrong. I recently did a presentation to 60 windows developers in London. Over half the people in the room used Macs - mostly MBPs, but several spec'd up MacBooks. Aside from the fact that Macs are usually cheaper than most rivals when it comes to the specs that matter to developers (size, weight, battery life, raw CPU) - 'Coolness' came high on the list.

To quote from one developer from Denmark: "The best thing about my Mac is that all the pretty girls on the train see the Mac and assume you're something interesting like a graphic designer, and not something boring like a Windows programmer!"

Try getting that with your Acer :D

[Veracon]

Let me start by saying that I understand how great machines MacBooks are. But, that said, I don't know if everyone else is unlucky, I'm lucky or something entirely different, but I've had an acer laptop for quite a while now and have had close to no problems with it. In the beginning there were a few application crashes, but after a week or so they seemingly disappeared and it's running perfectly now.

So I definitely can't say all those "horror stories" about acer apply to me. I'm happy with my acer.

(edit) oh, about the bloatware, yes, it's there. But I think I spent probably 5 minutes removing it and now performance is just on-par with my other, similarly-specced (and home built) computer.

[queshy]

I work at futureshop (like best buy), and let me tell you - the acer laptops are sooooo cheap. they may look good on paper, but literally I have never seen a cheaper looking laptop. it looks like it was built by fisher price as a children's toy. the hp-s, not so much, but the acers...they just look and feel so cheap. the keyboards literally sink in when you type on them. the quality of the mbp is well worth the premium.

[ezekielrage_99]

My previous personal laptop was an Acer 8104 (2Ghz Pentium M, ATI X700). I'll never buy another Acer based on my experiences....

1. Ran insanely hot 97C or higher under load, and heat radiated up through track pad. Loud-ish fan on every 3 minutes or so.

2. Power issues. I had to have the system board/power supply replaced 3 times. Memory failed once. Repair service took forever and each required multiple tries to fix the laptop.

3. LCD...uneven lighting and grainy.

4. Silver paint discolored, wore off on wrist areas.

5. Weak support, no driver updates, bad ACPI implementation that hosed Linux installs

6. Crashes more often than is comfortable.

I had similar issues with my Acer..... Grainy LCD, burnt out the CPU (it ran very hot), crappy Video (intermittent fuzzy graphics), the finish rubbed away (only after a few weeks), the DVD ROM bay died after a few uses.

Overall Acer sucks, and their Customer Support is as useful as tits on a bull.

[vicious7]

Just replaced my Acer 2310 with a new MBP. The difference is night and day. I've had the Acer for about two years and while I've not had catastrophic failures, the machine had deteriorated quickly - uneven screen brightness, excessive heat, questionable cd drive and typical of PC's, bloated. The thing I did like was the keyboard. It did take a pounding and all the keys still work :eek:

Would I ever buy another Acer? Probably not. Would I buy another Apple? That remains to be seen. I'm still on my honeymoon with my new MBP. I'll report back in four years ;)

[DeadAcerFerrari]

I had Acer Ferrari Notebook a couple of years ago.
With nice red glossy back. You know.

Try to search 'dead acer ferrary notebook' in google. Considering this, I was a lucky one!

The mother board went dead 12 months after bying. Right after warranty expired. (Looks like it was programmed to die ;)
Have replaced it in Singapore without warranty. I had to bought new battery by then. Because old one was started to heating up enormously.

Few months after that hard disk went crazy.
If you're holding the notebook vertically like book - it works.
When you lay it down to the table - it's not.

Bluetooth has never worked right on it.
Thermal management is awfull.
When limiting the processor speed to 800MHz it works nicely few minutes after power on. When the horrible fan come into play. When you push 100% load upto1800MHz it become an owen. Very noisy one ;)

My advice if you want problems: go with Acer. They don't care much about what notebooks they are making. But for their sharedholders Acer do amazing job. They got more than $2000 for a crappy notebook itself from me and around $500 for repair service and parts.

If you don't stay away from it.

Now i'm waiting new subnotebook from Apple or MacbookPro if I run out my patience soon.

[oldscool63]

It's all about the OS for me. I own 18 Macs and love them all. Now that MAC's are on the Intel platform, I'd like to run OSX on my choice of computers (yes, I know I can hack it...and I'm sure I'll get around to it). I wish the cost of Apple's hardware was lower, of course, but who doesn't? I run Linux and Unix on some older MAC's as well. Apple's making HUGE profits by switching over to the lower-priced Intel platform and keeping OSX proprietary....and as long as we LOVE OSX, we'll continue to buy Apple hardware.

Que sera, sera...

[cluthz]

I was considering buying a 2.2GHz MBP for my gf and initially running Windows on it.

As a last minute reassurance why wouldn't I want to get this:

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version.asp

Seems to have an almost identical spec and is a whopping £500 cheaper plus I don't have to buy Windows for it.

Ta

A friend of mine has a Acer that is really looking similar to that one, he has a 2.16ghz c2d and x1600 gfx and its 10 times hotter than my SR MBP.

He has to have his mouse almost half a yard away from his computer due to the exhaust fan, else he gets his hand burned... but it was cheap