Acer 8104 update 7-21-05

I know that most of the Acer reviews being done lately have been for the Ferrari 4005, and that the 8104 is not being talked about as much anymore, but I wanted to write up a quick review anyway since some people are still looking around and considering which notebook they want to buy. Also, the recent (within the last 3 weeks) price cuts on the Acer 8100 series notebooks takes them from the "over $2k" category, to the "a little over $1500" category. These are still very near to top-of-the-line notebooks, especially if you're factoring "thin & light" into the equation.

So... I will first give a little info on ordering this awesome notebook. The rest of this first post will be on that subject. I would've prefered to get it from Newegg.com, as they're one of the most favored online vendors in the digital world. But ZipZoomFly.com had the notebook for $145 less than the $1,999 that Newegg was asking for. And ZZF is supposed to be just as good.

So... I place my order on 7/11/05, which is a Monday, configured for $1855 with free UPS ground shipping. My order wouldn't go through though, which I couldn't figure out why. So I finally e-mailed them (I didn't want to pay for long distance, and they don't have an 800 number) and asked them to call me on my cell phone so I could place my order. I received a call from them the same day, and was able to place the order over the phone with a girl named Kim. That week I checked my order online several times to see how it was progressing, and on Wed morning it had changed from "processing" to "Packed." But it didn't go anywhere from there.

On Thursday I talked to a computer savvy friend of mine who orders a lot from ZZF for his clients (he does in-home tech support), and he suggested that they might have shipped it out already, but just not updated the site. My thought was, "Why have online status checking, if it's inaccurate?!" So I called up their phone number from work (free long distance), and they said it could take 1-2 days to process and ship. I called again on Friday, and they seemed to think that 1-2 days meant 5 days. But I was trying to be patient (I had a LAN party to go to that night, and found myself wishing I had it already).

So Monday I'm sitting at my desk at work, and the mailroom boy brings a package to my desk, and it's my notebook! And upon inspection, it appears that ZZF decided to finally ship it out on Saturday, the 16th, and I got it on Monday, the 18th (exactly 1 week from the order date)! And (added bonus) for some reason, they shipped it out Fed-Ex 2-Day delivery. Oh, and after I got my package, I received an e-mail from ZZF, letting me know that my order had shipped out. But it gave me the same ship date as my (actual) receive date. ?!

So... enough with the ZZF thing... just wanted to let anyone know who orders through them that their online tracking isn't accurate. BUT, their customer service is great. (I even got an e-mail today asking if I'd received my order, and if it was ok) So overall I give them a 9/10.

Ok, now for details and thoughts on the 8104:

This computer never ceases to amaze me. I've gotten several comments of "Wow, that is the thinnest laptop I've ever seen!" And when I set it on my lap for the first time, I was shocked at how comfortable it was, compared to my 8lb Toshiba Satellite P4! I've never used a notebook before that was this much fun. I set all my settings in UT2004 to high (the game cusses at you when you do that... "Hollly S***"), and it played beautifully (with stock drivers) at 45+ fps.

As for the problems other people have mentioned... it doesn't get hot at all, even when playing UT. It literally runs silent when under use. From the reviews I read, I expected a fire to be coming out of the left area towards the rear of the notebook. And when I turned it on and it remained silent, I was very happy (my wife's P4 Toshiba screams fan noise when I boot it up).

I did hear a high-pitched noise as described by some when Bluetooth is turned on and then turned off (you supposedly have to keep it on to make the noise stop), but once I rebooted, it was gone and hasn't come back.

And the only 4 software problems I've had were:

1. Windows wouldn't boot up all the way when I first turned on the notebook (is this common?), and I had to reformat the whole system with the 3 CDs that come with the computer, before I could do anything else with it.

2. Launch Manager wouldn't work right, and it kept giving me a "Zoom-In" lockup error when I tried to shut down the computer. So I uninstalled that. If I decide later that I want to use my hotkeys, I'll reinstall it and mess with it then. I believe this problem was causing my Internet Explorer to run extremely slow, as pages were taking forever to open, and after I got rid if it, my IE has been running beautifully (VERY fast).

3. My Palm Desktop software won't run on the computer. I did get my Palm m515 to sync over infra red, but when I open the desktop software, it gives me an error and closes it. I also couldn't get it to uninstall until I first got rid of Acer's Launch Manager (problem #2 from above).

4. I've set the notebook up with all my programs on the C: drive and all my documents, videos, and music on the D: drive. It's worked well for me so far, except that when I open up the folder on the D: drive will all my videos in it, it locks up Windows Explorer and then closes it.

Overall, a great notebook. I just need to finish working out the hardware kinks. Who on here has gotten the x700 to give them over 3000 3dmarks in 05? Anybody? On stock drivers (with all stock configurations, and Launch Manager freezing up and causing things to run slow) I got 5,354 in 03, and 2,244 in 05.

I will be tuning it tonight, and installing all the drivers off the Acer website (though I've been told they're outdated. Any suggestions? I know not to get ATI's driver from them).

-Ransom

Aves, thanks for the response. I didn't realize that the 1-2 business days was on top of another 1-2 "normal" process days. Normally when I order something from an online vendor, it gets shipped out the same day. I don't normally order something like an entire notebook though, so the delay in shipping is understandable. If they had been up front with me about that the first time I asked, I wouldn't have worried so much about it going out later than normal.

As for the Friday thing, I just wished I could have had it last Friday, I definitely didn't expect to get it then. The Friday I really want to have it for is this coming Friday (BIG UT2k4 LAN party in KC with some great friends of mine). I'm so glad I got it on time to show it to the guys I've gotten such a hard time from for "gaming on a laptop." Their opinion is that a notebook worth gaming on will weigh as much as a desktop anyway.

Oh, and no I didn't upgrade to 2-day delivery. I informed them, once I realized how fast they'd shipped it to me, that they had sent it to me using two day Fed-Ex instead of the expected UPS Ground service, and I thanked them for that, but I don't think they meant to do it at all. And don't worry, ZipZoomFly is going to get a GREAT review from me.

-Ransom

Jarpmann, I get amazing battery life. I had it with me at work the day I received it, and I was on battery power and first reinstalled the entire operating system from the restore disks, and then installed all the programs I wanted to use on it (IE: UT2004, Pinnacle Studio 9, AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc.) and I did all this on battery and listened to music and everything, and I got over 4 hours of battery life out of it. I didn't even keep strict track to see just how much time over that I was using it (yes, sometimes it was idle, but other times it was working hard to install everything). I can't believe how long it runs. Whenever I used my old P4 Toshiba (wife has it now) on battery power, I would always feel like I needed to rush, because it was going to run out of battery life so fast. With this, I don't even have to think about it most of the time.

ZipZoomFly doesn't offer any customization of the notebook, so you can't get an extra battery or anything else. If you want another battery, I suggest getting one from a place likeShopBattery.net for $110. A lot of places I checked didn't have pricing on them yet for some reason.

Good luck!

Easy answer: Yes.

The notebook has a switch on the bottom that releases the battery and it pops right out the back. Very good design, and makes for easy removal for both swapping in another battery, or if you'll be plugged into an outlet for a long time (ie: overnight, while downloading files), then you won't pre-age your battery by leaving it plugged in while charged for extended periods of time.

Any more questions?

8 cell. I'm pretty sure they all come with 8 cell batteries.

Update:

Ok, due to the problems I was having with some of my installed software, I decided that there must be something wrong with my Acer System CDs. So I reformatted everything, merged the two large partitions into one (I left the 3GB one alone) NTFS drive, and then reinstalled a clean version of Win XP Pro. Then I installed all the drivers off the Acer website (minus the added bloatware), and so far the machine is running beautifully.

I got ATI's regular Catalyst Driver off of their site, but would like to know if there's a way to get the new notebook driver (for x700 / x800) to install on an Acer notebook. Has anyone figured out a way to make this happen? I'd love better frame rates.

Will run 3dmark03 and 05 tonight at the Lan party with currently installed drivers (no OCing).

-Ransom

Hey, I've been leaving the Bluetooth disabled for now, but I haven't gotten it to come back since the day the notebook arrived. I accidentally turned it on that day and then when I turned it off I heard a high pitched noise. But after 1 reboot, it never came back.

If you want, I can try it out tonight, if I get the nerve up enough to risk having to keep it on all the time, to keep the noise away.

-Ransom