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Acer Travelmate 8204

post #1 of 24
2/12/06 at 7:15pm
Thread Starter 
Hi, I've been reading the threads and reviews concerning the 8204, I was pretty set on buying this, but when I talked with some retailers, they said that they did not highly recommend the Acer 8204, as there were many problems with it and was being returned at a high rate. They said they had sold 7 of them, and 3 of them were returned within a week. Anyone else having problems with it? I really like this laptop, as I'm looking for a desktop replacement that can I can game with. Or anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for Canada stores only.
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post #2 of 24
2/12/06 at 7:32pm
I read an owner's thread here the other day, and saw in a review elsewhere, that the screens are dull and disappointing. Major drawback IMO. Although the ATI X1600 card should be much better than my still-gameable X700, I've read that they underperform considerably compared to an nVidia 7800 GTX, which of course you can only get in a much heavier laptop right now. Tom's Hardware had a comparison of all video cards (dunno if they've added the X1600 yet) but I couldn't find it on their site the other day. Must be there somewhere. Keep researching!
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post #3 of 24
2/12/06 at 9:32pm
This is a great laptop and I recommend it whole-heartedly!
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post #4 of 24
2/12/06 at 11:09pm
Thread Starter 
I've been looking at some benchmarks...seems like the x1600 is wayyyy outperformed by the 7800gtx/6800 ultra and even the 6800!
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post #5 of 24
2/12/06 at 11:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by iNsAnEcLoWn
This is a great laptop and I recommend it whole-heartedly!
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post #6 of 24
2/13/06 at 12:31am
Thread Starter 

i think i'm gonna go for it
i'm not too fond of the thicker/heavier dell/AW notebooks
the acer's specs look solid. i'm just worried about bugs/glitches with the first batch
but anything will kick my present comp's arse!
is the ATI x1600 removable? i think it's onboard?
any way i could fit in another GPU like a 7800gtx or a x1800 when it comes out?
also should I wait a month and a bit for the Asus intel duo notebooks to come out? i've seen the specs, i'm not too impressed by them.
about the same or worse than the 8204! suggestions?
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post #7 of 24
2/13/06 at 4:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMsyvc
Although the ATI X1600 card should be much better than my still-gameable X700, I've read that they underperform considerably compared to an nVidia 7800 GTX
I've seen Acer 8204 3dmarks2005 at Cnet and they are about half as high as that of Sager 9750(Clevo D900K) which have 7800 GTX.
So X1600 probably about half as fast as 7800 GTX.
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post #8 of 24
2/13/06 at 4:26am
Thread Starter 
u mean half as powerful?
in addition to my question in my previous post...this is for owner's of the 8204
what's up with the non-glossy screen?
is there a cheap and easy way to make it glossy?
i read that it's not glossy cuz it's supposed to be for "business" use and conservative look (wtf? why the carbon fibre!? and sexy curves?).
do games and pics not look as good as it could look on the screen??? and multimedia too?
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post #9 of 24
2/13/06 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdreeN
I've been looking at some benchmarks...seems like the x1600 is wayyyy outperformed by the 7800gtx/6800 ultra and even the 6800!
If you've been reading other posts, the X1600 sits above the 6800 Vanilla. And OBVIOUSLY the 7800GTX is better than the X1600. Why the heck do you think it's only available on 17 inch laptops that last only 2 hours?
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post #10 of 24
2/13/06 at 9:03am
Games look fine. I don't understand why they didn't give it the gloss finish though. There is a company that makes custom transdermal film for laptop screens. It gives them the gloss finish and supposedly a more vibrant look. I don't recall who they are though. You could search the forum. There's a post on them.

I didn't want the 7800 or I would have bought it. I wanted something I could do everything with, including carry around with me amongst five different locations that I opperate out of. This is the best of all worlds. I would argue it does not specialize in any one area, except good looks. So far it seems to be great at everything. I don't think it was meant to be the "Best Gaming Machine". I guess that's kinda why Acer and every other company makes different models. So they can try and apeal to different needs. I guess if you need a 7800, this isn't your laptop.
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post #11 of 24
2/13/06 at 11:32am
I have been very happy with the 8204 so far. I think the main reason for the returns has been the NIC issue. From what I have read on this so far, It seems this is probably a driver issue and not hardware. I am sure this will be resolved. I loaded the older NIC driver mentioned in the other threads and the NIC is working fine now. However, I did like many others receive the 533 ram not 667.
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post #12 of 24
2/13/06 at 6:35pm
Thread Starter 
hmmmmmmmm....i'm quite set on this laptop, just all the problems people have been experiencing is really throwing me off and making me want to wait for a refresh model or others from asus.
i really don't want to spend 2700 cad on a laptop that has the possibility of presenting problem out of the box...if only i were rrrrrrrich
creepy cuz store manager said 40-50% of these laptops that were bought were returned in 2 weeks
i guess i could wait a month and see how things go...but i sooooooo want it now!
duo core, 2gig, sexy carbon fibre chassis, and a discreet yet powerful gpu in such a thin frame...god it's beautiful
if anyone could make some donations that'd be sweet
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post #13 of 24
2/13/06 at 6:56pm
I just put mine on hold at tigerdirect.com Been waiting for a few weeks now. I think for gaming it can hold it's own, I've started to do a lot of my gaming on my psp ( i know it doesn't compare but i'm at my computer so much gaming is the last thing I want to do).

Gloss is nice, but really distracting when working on graphics. Maybe down the road I will put a gloss finish on it just to protect the screen.

I have had a 5660 and the weight is definitely not something you can handle on a daily basis and it was only 10 pounds! So I'm all for the acer to accomplish everything I need to do with it.
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post #14 of 24
2/13/06 at 8:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocean158
I just put mine on hold at tigerdirect.com Been waiting for a few weeks now. I think for gaming it can hold it's own, I've started to do a lot of my gaming on my psp ( i know it doesn't compare but i'm at my computer so much gaming is the last thing I want to do).

Gloss is nice, but really distracting when working on graphics. Maybe down the road I will put a gloss finish on it just to protect the screen.

I have had a 5660 and the weight is definitely not something you can handle on a daily basis and it was only 10 pounds! So I'm all for the acer to accomplish everything I need to do with it.
Excellent choice.
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post #15 of 24
2/13/06 at 8:13pm
I had a 8106 and now I got a 8204. I don't see anything that got worse.
3D- and cpu-speed improved quite a bit, temperatures seem to be lower and they doubled the ram.
The x700 got about 2700 pts in 3dmark 05, the x1600 over 4100 (+50% in about one year).
Don't see why they couldn't move the USB slots on the right farther back but it's still better than the 8100.

Most people who complain about the screen seem to be expecting something different from what a matte screen can do...

Last weekend I met some friends for lan gaming, the notebook didn't crash once in 12 hours of UT2004, CS, Flatout and Starcraft. It performed as I had expected considering that the games aren't new.

In my opinion it's a pretty good notebook if you have realistic ideas about what it should be able to do.
If you want your laptop to outperform one of the fastest desktop 3d chips (7800 GTX), then you need something else.
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post #16 of 24
2/13/06 at 11:34pm
I think the wise choice would be to wait and see how these current problems pan out. Of course the initial release of a new laptop, nay, a new platform will come with some problems. It's whether Acer fixes these problems or not that matters.

I really need to have a wired NIC, so I'm waiting to see if there's a good fix for the problem. Otherwise it seems fine to me.
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post #17 of 24
2/14/06 at 12:00am
Thread Starter 
booooo but i want it nowwww!
i'm debating in getting this for 2300 cad, and a top of the line desktop performer...the portability is an awesomeeeee feature as i'm an university student, make note taking a whole lot easier (altho not a must as I DO have hands).
but the gaming on a desktop would be superb...altho i don't play a whole lot of the new games atm which raises the question, do i really need it.
but i do want to be able to play newer games if i get a laptop. decisions decisions
desktop setup if i end up getting one:
AMD Opteron 165 dual core (highly OCeable)
2gig OCZ Platinum DDR400 RAM
Acer 19" 8ms 700:1 monitor
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
ATI Radeon x1900XT
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post #18 of 24
2/14/06 at 2:58am
Thread Starter 
hey I'm throwing the Acer Aspire 5670 into the mix...has there been any problems with it like the 8204? Or is that an isolated problem for the 8204?
Anything bad I should know about the 5670? I'm seriously considering this as my next laptop. ALso how is the x1400 compared to the X700???
close? or does the x700 outperform it by a lot?
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post #19 of 24
3/13/06 at 10:12am
How does the 8202 bench/perform compared to the 8204? Half the RAM, slower clock, but same gfx card? I am thinking of 8202, or ferrari 4005wlmi, and really cant decide!
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post #20 of 24
3/14/06 at 9:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdreeN
I've been looking at some benchmarks...seems like the x1600 is wayyyy outperformed by the 7800gtx/6800 ultra and even the 6800!
uhm... and were you expecting otherwise?

Guys, this isn't a 17", 10lb. beast. If you want a laptop for maxed out settings on BF2 and FEAR, this is NOT for you. Go out and get an XPS Gen 2 or a m7700.

However, for a 15 incher, an X1600 is sweet. Defiently enough to run World of Warcraft at full settings and all other modern games at Medium-High.

So complaining about the GPU in this notebook is really useless.
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