8204 first thoughts... and they ain't good.

return your unit. It should not be rippling when u apply back pressure. mine doesn't ripple at all unless i feel like i am about to break the back paneling

And make sure to tweak your settings in CCC to make the screen better (saturation, brightness, gamma, colors). ANd double check that you have BIOS 3312.

Makes a world of difference

Wow. So much rubbish compared to what? a dell.. or a Packard Bell ? Its the least ammount of bloatware i've seen. Norton and a DVD burner software and DVD watching software... The Acer tools? wireless one is pointless by i like some of them and they actually help.
And i've yet to see any actuall proof that NTFS goes faster then FAT32. And you can convert it anyway. Hell you don't even have access to the first partition. What the hell is wrong with the Design.
And comparing a Fujitsu and Acer screens are just rubbish as Fujitsu have the Nicest screens out there.. No comparasim. and the LCD shouldn't be rippling.

XP Cd.. yes abit dissapointing at the fact it didn't come with one. But i can make my own so it doesn't really matter.

Or you can do what I did and call Acer. They sent me a DVD with the install, free of charge.

Ha hahhaha my ideling temprature for the Acer (after its been on for almost 9 hours doing various tasks, games, internet and word proccessing) is just 38C
And that M7700 with a 4800+ must be doing some serious chilling to get that low.

You can upgrade the LCD if you want. yes Acer don't have the Best screens, i belive that goes to FUjitsu computers as their screens have a universal approval. But for me the brightness is great on my lappy.

@ Kohaar so you just called acer and they sent you a winxp copy for free. Not the image disk?

No. They sent the image dvd.

Nintariman, do you have dark corners at the bottom left and right parts of your screen? I just got mine today (06/03 build) and have dark corners.

Thanks

remember who you talked to/ cause i was told 30 dollars

soulsaver

Any idea if you can upgrade the LCD within it to a better one?

Not sure if you mean upgrade as in from Acer or upgrade as in replace.

If replace look here
http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...ghlight=screen

I really don't understand all these people bitching about the screen. Here's a few thing I have to say:

Yes, it's not the best screen around but I would say it's about average. It's not as bright or virbrant as some fo the premium screen but it's definately comparable to most other laptop in the same price range.

It is brighter than the 8104 screen (not by much) but I found the 8104 screen perfectly workable even in bright office envoirment. The only problem I have is using it under direct sunlight.

No, it does not have a wide viewing angle. but why would you need one? It's a laptop, it's not like you be seating to side of it while typing on it. It's perfectly good enough even if you have to sit a bit to the side and show someone else something.

One more thing. Those better looking premium screen usually only come in a laptop that's over $3000 ( I would spend the price difference on a Dell 2005 20.1" wide for home use) and most can't even come close to the Acer's performance.

It's not a matter of poor horizontal viewing. The real problem are poor vertical angles. As far as i can see from pictures, vertical angles are much better in QD screens... Are all new 8204 equipped with QD?

I agree with what you say, but mine has dark(er) lower left and right corners. Does yours?

Well, still the QD screens appear to have issues

Do you think that LTs are better? I suspect that poor vertical viewing angles in my LT are related to light leakage somehow. I need to check LT screen without that issue. I don't care too much about grey lines, but it would be nicer not to have them. And I don't think that noise problem was related to LCD screen model at all, so I would prefere QD screen anyway...

JUst some thoughts about my 8204

Hi All,

I´m from Germany and I own my 8204 since the beginning of Feb. Maybe I was pure lucky, but I have NONE of the issues I can read here in this forum. Production date of my 8204 is the 5th of December (so most probably one of the first shipped) and my display is clear, crisp and bright.

In overall, when I decided to buy a new notebook (And I had some before like a Apple Powerbook G4, a Dell 5150, an Acer Aspire 1693WlmI) my choice at the end of the day was the 8204.

Why? Pretty Easy - There were NO other choices, equipped with a T2500 Dual Core, 2GB Memory, SATA-Disc and the brandnew ATI X1600 (YES, Sometimes I play Games ).

After nearly 3 months using the 8204, I´m still satisfied and happy with the performance and everything. I often read in here, questions like "8100 vs. 8204" but is that comparison really worth a discussion? If someone wants to buy a notebook, he/she should always compare Apples to Apples. If you DO this excercise, there are (still today, more than 4 months after the introduction of the core duo at CES) not that much notebooks with this performance and the installed components. Check it out, it IS still true.

I really don´t want to bother anyone, but also discussions about pricing is not worth the discussion. Compare Apples to Apples and you would recognize, that the current pricing of the 8204 is still great. I did this in the last days and was looking for an Apple MacBook Pro (where it is possible now also to install Windows). I´ve chosen the same CPU, I checked 2GB RAM, I checked the 100GB harddisc (120 is not available) and guess what? I ended at nearly 2.900 Euros (I got my 8204 for 2499.- Euros). You can always discuss about design, but what about the bluetooth phone (if you need it or not is another discussion) or the Smartcards or the additional 20GB of space?

Check for a dell. T2500 Core Duo at 2Ghz o.k. but not availably with the X1600 . Even if you can live with a slower harddrive and configure this notebook with more or less the same components you´ll end up with a HIGHER price.

Final Comment:

I´m not married with Acer but the true DATA proves that Acer has with the installed components by far the BEST offer.

Is this a guarantee that you will buy a notebook with no failures? Of course not, but this can always happen also with a 5000 Euro Plasma Panel or a new car or with everything you can imagine.

I for myself can only recommend the 8204.

All the best,

Michael