Laptops are as good as their warranty is. Here in the Philippines Acer sucks big time in that regard.
I bought a unit last December which failed in January. Today (2 May) I still have no laptop. Its all about giving the run about. First a few failed attempts to "fix" things by there local service center. Then to Acer in Manila where they had no parts for it. Finally pushed for refund (out of the question) then for replacement. Finally today I was text that Acer would consider replacement but ... I had to send all the accessories that came with it. No problem, got that covered. But then .... they also want back the carton box where it was packed in during delivery. Who keeps such box? That is only for shipping purposes ain't it. But they will use any technicality to avoid honoring their warranty. I offered them to keep all that stuff from the replacement as I don't need it. No way ..... "policy is .....blablabla". Bye laptop, bye Acer.... Stuff it, has tired me already too much!
Yup, your tale is not all that uncommon, sad to say. I keep
everything from units under warranty in a closet somewhere until said warranty expires. I mean, boxes, plastic bags, twist ties, documentation, invoices, receipts - everything even peripherally related to the item. Usually it all fits neatly back in the shipping carton, anyway. Put it in the closet after sticking a post-it label on it with item and date of purchase. I've been down this road too many times before. I've also gotten good at nesting boxes together for storage for this reason.
You
could just go with a better company or do as I learned to do: find a reliable refurbisher and don't buy new equipment unless you absolutely need the bleeding-est edge technology you can buy. You save money up front, and your expectations for the unit aren't as high because it's a generation or two back from the latest. My refurbisher of choice recently changed hands, and I haven't had need to buy from them again lately, so I'll hold my recommendation of them until I do. So far, I've been a satisfied customer, though. (a D620 laptop, two Precision 390 Workstations, and three 20" Dell LCDs, all refurbished, all still working after a couple of years.)
I've seen Dell hardware dissed as unreliable or cheap, and
there are some problem units out there, (for example, Dell + Nvidia eventually seems to spell failure in a laptop) but even these are easy to keep in repair with the info Dell makes freely available on the web. Their laptops don't tend to be pretty, and are built like a puzzle box (it only fits together ONE way), but are sufficiently rugged and durable for most purposes, and have decent performance, too.
Toshiba has been recommended here, and for stuff that's mission-critical it's hard to find better price/performance ratio anywhere, but I personally hate working on 'em - ya gotta
make a screw map (or take pictures)
as you go tearing down a Toshiba laptop or you will spend five times more time putting it back together properly than you did tearing it down.
Sorry to hear about this. It's becoming more and more prevalent in the industry, too. Kinda sad, that.
Later On,
D
