New Laptop: Acer or Asus

[Ryan D]

I'm in the market for a new laptop or netbook because the Macbook I've had since '06 fell out of the truck while I was moving last week while the machine was on. It now has some physical damage, makes noises like it's trying to eject a disc, and has turned off by itself two times this week.

I don't have a ton of cash right now so I'm looking at lower cost options. Does anyone have any experience with Acer or Asus products?

[Angry_Birds]

You really aren't going to find too much of a difference between laptops in the $400-$500 price range.

[Ryan D]

I didn't think there was much of a difference in the low end range but was just wondering if anyone had some real world experience with these brands.

[hrama803]

I purchased my very first Acer about 2 years ago. I am very happy with it. No issues at all. I only use it for traveling for the 3 weeks a year total I travel .

I got it for the bluray drive mainly. At the time it was the first one in our store.

Not sure if this was helpful.

I have a Acer Aspire 5745 Series. This is quite the price difference then what you were looking to spend but I just came to give my input on Acer.

I would buy another computer from them. My uncle who lives and breathes uses Acer for his Work and personal computers. I added the specs so you could see the power difference of mine and the ones your looking at. Again, I just wanted to share my experience with my Acer machine. Since I use it about 5 times a year its in perfect condition. I have thought about selling it. But bluray drive makes me keep it.

[SSj4G60]

You really aren't going to find too much of a difference between laptops in the $400-$500 price range.

Pretty much the "Disposables" range.

[Vision33r]

Asus, since they design and produce their own. Acer does not design and make their own.

[PhReE]

I honestly wouldn't be too picky about a brand. Define yourself a budget, and then look for the machine with the best features for that money.

Answer these questions and I will help you out.
What is your budget?
WHat size are you looking? 13" 14" 15" 16" 17"?
What are your priorities? (Screen size/resolution? Ram? HD size? SSD? etc)

Great place to look is www.dell.com/outlet scratch & dent with warranty for good deals. For $550 you can get a pretty decent 17" machine, if that's what you want.

[OG]

Wifey needed a small / light laptop / netbook for college. We looked around and I was initially considering a Netbook, however, after using some in the local stores. we just ended up getting a Samsung QX410, right after all the Christmas sales; it was on clearance, so got a pretty good deal, however, we spent about double our budget. Specs-wise, it's a Core i5, 4 Gb of RAM, 640 Gb HDD and a 14" LED screen.

Advantages:
- Really light and about an inch thick
- Great battery life
- Decent performance / specs

Disadvantages:
- Keyboard layout takes getting used to
- Keypad is funky to say the least. The left and right keys are part of the track-pad; this is problematic

For myself, I had bought an HP dv9260 back in 2007, whose video card finally decided to give up the ghost last year. I initially wanted to replace it with the Asus N53SV, but eventually decided on another Samsung, the Chronos Series 7. Got this on sale as well.

Very happy with both Samsung's. Good luck.

[B3sat16v]

Either would be just fine. I have a 500 Dollar HP that is approaching two years old and it has been great (despite the fact that this forum seem to hate on HP). I did take it apart (For giggles) about three or four months ago and put new thermal paste on the CPU. I will say it has been running a bit cooler, but not like it was too bad before.

In reality, it all depends on what you do, but a Core i3 will be more than sufficient for most daily activities.

[NateReyes1986]

Asus, since they design and produce their own. Acer does not design and make their own.

I've had a tendency to lean towards the Asus camp, but I might be biased because I have one of their 23in LED monitors, and I thoroughly enjoy it. Never had a problem with Acer in my experience though, my advice, go Asus.

[Ryan D]

Thanks for the input everyone.

I think for now I'm just going to continue what I've been doing lately which is just using the account I set up on the girlfriends Toshiba. It's a 17" which is bigger than I'm used to but it gets the job done. Between this and my Touch Pad I've been doing okay.

I'll just keep an eye out on clearance deals and hopefully find something in my budget.

[Aonarch]

They are both good brands. I've owned and worked with both.

I hate Toshiba, HP, Sony, and Compaq.

[matt007]

[B3sat16v]

Without a proper source for that data, it is just a graph that any Ten Y.O. can produce.

[BRealistic]

2009 stats?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/l...-win-hp-fails/

If that was posted recently as news on a site- than that site sucks.

here are some 2012 stats.




(tho not sure about the source either.. http://hotgeeksllctech.blogspot.com/...ity-chart.html.. but the family's Samsung Galaxy tablets and phones have been solid, so I don't doubt they are good)

I am surprised by the Dell as I know a dozen people that bought Dell laptops in the last five years and none have any hardware issues that I know of...

This may be a case just like new cars- as they industry in general gets more reliable, the difference between the best and worst reliability is not really that big.


Samsung makes low priced laptops.. which is surprising considering they are almost tied with Apple in reliability.

Here is a Llano A6 (great integrated graphics) Samsung with a 17.3" screen for $450.
That's hard to beat imo.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+...&skuId=4707155

[theevilshiftkey]

I know where that chart came from and it's reliable. Its from SquareTrade's numbers based on warranty claims data. You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/S...ility_1109.pdf

[theevilshiftkey]

Oh yeah... and I prefer Asus over any other brand in the cheap end of the scale.

[BRealistic]

I know where that chart came from and it's reliable. Its from SquareTrade's numbers based on warranty claims data. You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/S...ility_1109.pdf

But is from 2009.

[theevilshiftkey]

Yes it's from 2009. What are you confused about?

[BRealistic]

Yes it's from 2009. What are you confused about?

(looks at calender to make sure I have not been sucked through a time portal)

But this is 2012?
Quality can change quite a bit in three years.
Not that Asus isn't a good cheap laptop option- just that I would think newer stats are more relevant.

[Egilbe]

Oh yeah... and I prefer Asus over any other brand in the cheap end of the scale.

Me too. Lenovo may be a close second. HP is the only laptop I really steer anyone away from.

[Brett92]

OP: I'm of the mindset to just get the best machine for the money. In my personal experience, I have had 2 Gateway laptops and they both function fine. In fact, one laptop is going on 8 years old and is still being used by my wife's mom.

With that said, I install/maintain computer systems for a living for small businesses. We sell strictly Dell & Lenovo machines, both from their respective business lines ONLY. I have had 7 (out of 35-40) machines go bad this year. All were bad motherboards (4 Dell Optiplex 980s, 2 Lenovo Thinkcentre M91p, & 1 Lenovo Edge 15). Doesn't seem like a very good failure rate for business machines that were less than a couple of months old.

Sometimes I wonder if all we're getting is a better warranty, and a Professional OS in a nice tool-less designed case when we order business machines.

[theevilshiftkey]

just that I would think newer stats are more relevant.

I completely agree, but these are the only stats we have at this time in this thread. 2.5 year old statistic evidence is certainly better than new anecdotal evidence.

[BRealistic]

I completely agree, but these are the only stats we have at this time in this thread. 2.5 year old statistic evidence is certainly better than new anecdotal evidence.

But.. those must have been from laptop sold in 2007 (to have two year reliability stats).
Now we are five years away.

The only things I really got from that was don't buy a netbook, and cheaper laptop have a higher failure rate than premium laptops.

[Lsos2]

I am surprised by the Dell as I know a dozen people that bought Dell laptops in the last five years and none have any hardware issues that I know of...

Wish I could say the same. I have two (2) Dell XPS1530 laptops and they both had their graphics cards fail. One after 2 years, one after 3.

I guess it's a known problem, and it was a Nvidia graphics card, but nevertheless....

[datsily]

My friend's acer is very nice.She has used it for three years and no repairment.

[thescirocco.com]

I don't like how my ASUS netbook doesn't have access to the hard drive.

You have to remove the keyboard to access the HD, but the problem is, that the cable for the keyboard is too short, and the rest of the netbook ribbon cables without connectors suck.

[DenCo]

Wish I could say the same. I have two (2) Dell XPS1530 laptops and they both had their graphics cards fail. One after 2 years, one after 3.

I guess it's a known problem, and it was a Nvidia graphics card, but nevertheless....

Trying to fix my Dell Studio XPS 1647, which locks-up completely every few minutes. Doing a low-level format and going to restore from DVD afterwards. This is the second time it has failed in CY 2012 so far... and I'm now writing this on a brand-new Macbook Pro.

I'd stay clear from Acer, since I see far too many either get sent away for repair OR be defective in some way right out of the box. Asus, on the other hand, tends to be pretty good! HP is hit or miss, as is Dell; you're essentially playing Russian roulette with these guys. Also, oddly enough, I've seen and heard great things about Gateway. This is odd because they're owned by Acer and their products are pretty darn similar.

If Toshiba interests you at all, they seem to be among the best, longevity wise: I have an ancient Satellite A70 that still runs to this very day...

[KeiCar]

ASUS > Acer, any day of the week and twice on sundays! Just because they sound the same doesn't mean they are similar. Asus FWIW used to make the Powerbook line of laptops for Apple back in the day.

[Vision33r]

I don't like how my ASUS netbook doesn't have access to the hard drive.

You have to remove the keyboard to access the HD, but the problem is, that the cable for the keyboard is too short, and the rest of the netbook ribbon cables without connectors suck.

So you're using a netbook to assume the reliability of an entire company?

Maybe we should just judge GE by the quality of the lightbulbs they use to make.

[dr_spock]

I just bought an Acer netbook before seeing this thread. I guess we'll see how accurate is that chart in a couple of years...

[Egilbe]

Acer seems to be one of the better ones.

[cryption]

I've had extensive experience with both and I say the Acer. I'm a computer tech.

My last job we have about 400 Acer Aspire One 722 netbooks.

At my current job we have about 500 Asus 1005"PE" netbooks.

The Acer has a much better built case. The big thing that breaks on the Asus is the keyboards. The little plastic tabs that hold the spring in place snap with what I would consider modest pressure. I have a stash of keyboards because I replace them so often.

The Acer didn't have any big flaws. It wasn't extremely fast - but the Asus netbooks we have at my new job have double the RAM so that's the likely cause.

I didn't have many hardware failures. Typically hard drives from getting bonked around. Both are overall sturdy for what they cost. That's the big factor. I purchased myself an Acer, but I wouldn't buy one of the Asus. It won't last near as long.

[morbs_gt]

I recently got a restocked asus g53sx. So far I'm pretty happy with it.

[Vision33r]

I've had extensive experience with both and I say the Acer. I'm a computer tech.

My last job we have about 400 Acer Aspire One 722 netbooks.

At my current job we have about 500 Asus 1005"PE" netbooks.

The Acer has a much better built case. The big thing that breaks on the Asus is the keyboards. The little plastic tabs that hold the spring in place snap with what I would consider modest pressure. I have a stash of keyboards because I replace them so often.

The Acer didn't have any big flaws. It wasn't extremely fast - but the Asus netbooks we have at my new job have double the RAM so that's the likely cause.

I didn't have many hardware failures. Typically hard drives from getting bonked around. Both are overall sturdy for what they cost. That's the big factor. I purchased myself an Acer, but I wouldn't buy one of the Asus. It won't last near as long.

And your anecdotal evidence is based on cheap Netbooks comparison... that's nice to know.