I purchased a acer recently but was a little ticked off at the chassis it was using because getting inside to change drives.. ram.. or add a SSD stick (M.2) was problematic and voided warranties. That should never be the case for simple additions Acer, come on!
They make some nice cost effective machines (like the one above) but there are always some amazingly short-sighted design flaws that remind you...that it's an Acer.
In the case of their Chromebooks...it's the keyboard. Probably the worst chiclet I've ever used.
acer has a history with horrible keyboards if you ask me. years ago when they first introduced their timeline series they had these terrible "floating island" keys... *shudder*
In the case of my N56VZ (and a lot of the rest of the N5xxx series) is the ethernet port. Instead of a proper port they have some pins and a spring loaded clip that sort of reminds me of those things that you could pop out of old PCMCIA network cards or modems.
It's horrible to remove cables from when new because it closes along with the latch on the cable and maintains a grip as you try to unlatch the cable. Then as it gets older the spring fails and it flaps around. Pull the cable wrong and it loses contact.
I hate everyone at Asus involved with this port. It's not like it's even a thin machine where the extra thickness of a proper connector would have made a bit of difference.
Really though the rest of the machine is OK, especially for the price I paid. Build quality is about equal to my pre-unibody Macbook Pro, i.e. good but the bar for great is pretty high.
You certainly realize that the article is about Acer, not Asus, correct?
But it is generally true that there are many issues with the major computer brands... I think Lenovo has very good offering as far as price-performance ratio is concerned (I like the Y70 with Touch a lot), but that is it.
clevo, msi, and alienware are much better at giving you large access hatches to get at this stuff, which is the general realm that this laptop falls into, a gaming/multimedia laptop. heck, lenovo's business laptop only makes you remove 3 screws, then everything but the motherboard can be replaced. And those are much less powerful (a10-5750m, crossing fingers for a fx-7600p model) and cost a third what this machine does. I will agree, anyone expecting this from Acer was a little misguided.
The V5 & V7 with IPS screens were pretty easy to take apart and upgrade. I installed memory and added an mSATA drive no problem, keeping the hard drive one one and pulling it out on the other.
So just an FYI the V5/V7 are not difficult to open up, well at least for techies. Always search for videos online. They help a lot.
I really hope Windows 10 fixes scaling issues. I am running a 13" 1080p display with very light scaling and it drives me absolutely crazy any time I have to use a piece of software that is not made specifically for high dpi displays. Cramming 2x as many pixels in a slightly larger display would look absolutely beautiful on programs that scale well, but would be absolutely unusable for anything that has difficulties.
How is Windows going to fix scaling of 3rd party applications? It's the same situation as when the Retina Macbooks launched. I think Apple had an advantage there since there are so few models, they basically hit 50% of laptop SKUs out the door having HiDPI displays immediately. With the endless Windows hardware options, developers aren't as eager to update their apps when only a tiny % of users have them.
I would like to point out that the 860M is perfectly capable of gaming at 1080p, which scales quite well with UHD screens. I would like to think that because it seems that no mobile card can pull off UHD gaming properly that the higher res is for text and other applications (graphic modelling)
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20 Comments
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just4U - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I purchased a acer recently but was a little ticked off at the chassis it was using because getting inside to change drives.. ram.. or add a SSD stick (M.2) was problematic and voided warranties. That should never be the case for simple additions Acer, come on!Samus - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I'm sorry you purchased an Acer.They make some nice cost effective machines (like the one above) but there are always some amazingly short-sighted design flaws that remind you...that it's an Acer.
In the case of their Chromebooks...it's the keyboard. Probably the worst chiclet I've ever used.
fokka - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
acer has a history with horrible keyboards if you ask me. years ago when they first introduced their timeline series they had these terrible "floating island" keys... *shudder*wolrah - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
In the case of my N56VZ (and a lot of the rest of the N5xxx series) is the ethernet port. Instead of a proper port they have some pins and a spring loaded clip that sort of reminds me of those things that you could pop out of old PCMCIA network cards or modems.It's horrible to remove cables from when new because it closes along with the latch on the cable and maintains a grip as you try to unlatch the cable. Then as it gets older the spring fails and it flaps around. Pull the cable wrong and it loses contact.
I hate everyone at Asus involved with this port. It's not like it's even a thin machine where the extra thickness of a proper connector would have made a bit of difference.
Really though the rest of the machine is OK, especially for the price I paid. Build quality is about equal to my pre-unibody Macbook Pro, i.e. good but the bar for great is pretty high.
mfilipow - Saturday, November 8, 2014 - link
You certainly realize that the article is about Acer, not Asus, correct?But it is generally true that there are many issues with the major computer brands... I think Lenovo has very good offering as far as price-performance ratio is concerned (I like the Y70 with Touch a lot), but that is it.
CaedenV - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
Isnt that the case for just about any laptop these days? I am all for piling on Acer... but I don't see how this is an Acer issue.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
clevo, msi, and alienware are much better at giving you large access hatches to get at this stuff, which is the general realm that this laptop falls into, a gaming/multimedia laptop. heck, lenovo's business laptop only makes you remove 3 screws, then everything but the motherboard can be replaced. And those are much less powerful (a10-5750m, crossing fingers for a fx-7600p model) and cost a third what this machine does. I will agree, anyone expecting this from Acer was a little misguided.abianand - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
You're in luck, well almost. Here is an fx-7500 based laptop on bestbuy.http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-envy-touchsmart-15-...
Buying this laptop will also make you eligible for a free game (because the APU in it is an A10.). You'll see this offer when you scroll down a bit.
i think this is the first kaveri fx laptop i am seeing
Wolfpup - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
These seemed like good notebooks if they were like $600-900, maybe. But at these prices you can just get an Alienware.jmunjr - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
The V5 & V7 with IPS screens were pretty easy to take apart and upgrade. I installed memory and added an mSATA drive no problem, keeping the hard drive one one and pulling it out on the other.So just an FYI the V5/V7 are not difficult to open up, well at least for techies. Always search for videos online. They help a lot.
CaedenV - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I really hope Windows 10 fixes scaling issues. I am running a 13" 1080p display with very light scaling and it drives me absolutely crazy any time I have to use a piece of software that is not made specifically for high dpi displays. Cramming 2x as many pixels in a slightly larger display would look absolutely beautiful on programs that scale well, but would be absolutely unusable for anything that has difficulties.Bob Todd - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
How is Windows going to fix scaling of 3rd party applications? It's the same situation as when the Retina Macbooks launched. I think Apple had an advantage there since there are so few models, they basically hit 50% of laptop SKUs out the door having HiDPI displays immediately. With the endless Windows hardware options, developers aren't as eager to update their apps when only a tiny % of users have them.thCRITICALThinker - Monday, November 3, 2014 - link
I would like to point out that the 860M is perfectly capable of gaming at 1080p, which scales quite well with UHD screens. I would like to think that because it seems that no mobile card can pull off UHD gaming properly that the higher res is for text and other applications (graphic modelling)Tams80 - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
That battery runtime... ugh!PHlipMoD3 - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
Acer V15 Series VN7-591G-70JY Specificaiotns - should be "specifications"Perhaps some more stringent proof reading...
aoshiryaev - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
Finally a 15" rMBP competitor, and cheaper too. Graphics are stronger here. Now if only they got the weight and the battery life.Bob Todd - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
Nobody is going to cross shop those two laptops for many reasons, including the battery life one that you mentioned.Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
$1500 for a 3 cell battery. God these guys just cant build a notebook to save their lives.kyuu - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
Cheap tablets have bigger batteries than that. Are they even trying?vortexmak - Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - link
Jarred, you might want to check back with Acer.None of the 15 inch Full HD screens specify IPS on Newegg or the Acer site
Users on Notebook review have reported bad viewing angles and dark screens. Only the 17 inch models seem to have good screens