thinking buying a laptop

[Encheta]

I have an Acer and I can say that they are pretty good in terms of reliability. While I can't say that my lappy is really old (I got it around March last year) it is aging, and so far only the battery has carked it. In its defense though, I am a heavy battery user - discharging and recharging at least twice a day. standard battery use is only once per day, or 1.5yrs maximum lifespan. Also, it didn't help with the fact that when I last went overseas for a month, I left it in my boiling hot room at half charge...

Thing is, Acer is more into business notebooks rather than mobile gaming and you tend to see that in their specs - nice fast CPU, reasonable but still very expandable RAM (mine can go up to 4gb, but at the time I bought it most other brands still only allowed up to 2), sometimes good graphics, but very crummy soundcard. Seriously, stereo only? Most lappies have 5.1 capability, and sometimes even 7.1. Hopefully Acer's licked that. More importantly though, have you heard of Acers customer support? In Australia it's bloody awful (beleive me, I know. Carked battery remember? Don't ask what I went through to get a replacement...)

I'd reccomend Asus over all the other brands, simply because of balance of price, quality and customer support. I'd personally then go Dell's XPS laptops (I've seen someone at uni playing Crysis on one o.O) and then Acer. Alienware's cases are too garish for my tastes..

Oh, and stay away from toshibas like the plague - they have absolutely NO ventilation, except for a hole for the fan which, coincidentally, breaks down a lot. (Experience with two of my freinds' ones - ugh..)

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