ozone48
03-03-2006, 08:49 PM
Made the jump over to the Acer 8204. Just received it on Monday. Been going through the other threads here on the same model to compare to what I received, as well as, comparing it to my current notebook, Alienware 766 with a 3.2P4 processor, 1GB ram, 60 GB HD (7200RPM), Radeon 9600 vid card with 128 MB memory.
As I read these threads, it is almost like reading the same ones on the Alienware notebook I have now when I first got it. Everyone was pissed about the poor picture, not being able to upgrade the video card except to a limited number of ATI 9700 and Nvidia 5700's. Along the way, the manufacturer and others came up with settings to improve the picture quality, etc. I have been fairly happy with it. Only had to replace a crashed hard drive in the beginning once. I can now hear a fan starting to go and it is slowing down for my needs.
My quick observations on the 8204 so far. I am glad I did the recovery disk first. After converting over to NTFS (I don't understand why ACER doesn't set it up this way to begin with) and installing my first peice of hardware into a USB port and rebooting to finish install, it crashed and I couldn't boot into the C partition. The recovery disk saved me. I have reinstalled everything it came with again. I have only added anti-virus software so far. I did all of the updates to Windows and I flashed the BIOS to update, as well as, the NIC card update the ACER made available. So far, so good again. I did reinstall the same hardware into the same USB port and had no problems this time. So far I have been allowing Windows to control the wireless connection after reintall. The software the ACER provided and I used prior to the crash kept connecting and disconnecting me and causing grief.
Compared to my Alienware, I feel the picture is equal, if not slightly better in brightness and crispness. Performance rocks in comparison. I have only run Super Pi so far. Will run others next week. With nothing turned off on both machines, I get 1 min 21 sec for 2M digits on the 8204, my Alienware does it in 2 min 43 sec. I would say that is a good start. Once I upgrade the video drivers on the 8204 (My Alienware already uses Omega drivers), and turn off un-needed services, there will definately bee some improvement on the 8204. Although the Alienware didn't come installed with a bunch of "bloatware", I am debating the ones from ACER. I am trying them out to see if I want to keep them. So far, I think I will. I like some of the features they provide, especially on security.
I did a lot of shopping around before making this decision on the 8204. Like most products, there is going to be some problems and hopefully they can be worked through. So far I am happy. The weight compared to my current is MUCH better. At least 3 pounds better and closer to 4 or 5 if I count the power adapter. My only minor complaint is I wish I had an external volume control on it. Out of the 6 (including the 8204), I think this is the only notebook I have had that doesn't include this.
I am only concerned about converting the file type (NTFS) again and wether I want Windows to manage the wireless, try what ACER provides or go to some third party. It seems the 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years that somehow Windows XP was installed with FAT32 and converted to NTFS after, I have ALWAYS run into stability problems. Of course I still feel Win 2000 Pro is more stable than XP in general.
As I read these threads, it is almost like reading the same ones on the Alienware notebook I have now when I first got it. Everyone was pissed about the poor picture, not being able to upgrade the video card except to a limited number of ATI 9700 and Nvidia 5700's. Along the way, the manufacturer and others came up with settings to improve the picture quality, etc. I have been fairly happy with it. Only had to replace a crashed hard drive in the beginning once. I can now hear a fan starting to go and it is slowing down for my needs.
My quick observations on the 8204 so far. I am glad I did the recovery disk first. After converting over to NTFS (I don't understand why ACER doesn't set it up this way to begin with) and installing my first peice of hardware into a USB port and rebooting to finish install, it crashed and I couldn't boot into the C partition. The recovery disk saved me. I have reinstalled everything it came with again. I have only added anti-virus software so far. I did all of the updates to Windows and I flashed the BIOS to update, as well as, the NIC card update the ACER made available. So far, so good again. I did reinstall the same hardware into the same USB port and had no problems this time. So far I have been allowing Windows to control the wireless connection after reintall. The software the ACER provided and I used prior to the crash kept connecting and disconnecting me and causing grief.
Compared to my Alienware, I feel the picture is equal, if not slightly better in brightness and crispness. Performance rocks in comparison. I have only run Super Pi so far. Will run others next week. With nothing turned off on both machines, I get 1 min 21 sec for 2M digits on the 8204, my Alienware does it in 2 min 43 sec. I would say that is a good start. Once I upgrade the video drivers on the 8204 (My Alienware already uses Omega drivers), and turn off un-needed services, there will definately bee some improvement on the 8204. Although the Alienware didn't come installed with a bunch of "bloatware", I am debating the ones from ACER. I am trying them out to see if I want to keep them. So far, I think I will. I like some of the features they provide, especially on security.
I did a lot of shopping around before making this decision on the 8204. Like most products, there is going to be some problems and hopefully they can be worked through. So far I am happy. The weight compared to my current is MUCH better. At least 3 pounds better and closer to 4 or 5 if I count the power adapter. My only minor complaint is I wish I had an external volume control on it. Out of the 6 (including the 8204), I think this is the only notebook I have had that doesn't include this.
I am only concerned about converting the file type (NTFS) again and wether I want Windows to manage the wireless, try what ACER provides or go to some third party. It seems the 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years that somehow Windows XP was installed with FAT32 and converted to NTFS after, I have ALWAYS run into stability problems. Of course I still feel Win 2000 Pro is more stable than XP in general.