I have been cursed with owning an acer Aspire 5100. Now, I got if for free and I'm still complaining. THAT is how incredibly terrible it is. I'll give a few reasons for this. So back in 2007 I believe, acer released an update that automatically updated through Windows. This update didn't actually do much of anything except break 70% of the Aspire 5100 series. Ya, thats pretty bad, but it isn't the worst.
So here I will explain exactly how this update broke the notebooks. What it did was incredible. It disabled all of the USB ports, disabled the touchpad, and disabled the keyboard. That leaves practically nothing working.
Now the worst thing about it in my opinion is that acer didn't reverse the problem. Ever. It is still there. If the laptop was still under warranty, they fixed it after a month or two. If not, all you had to do was collaborate with the internet and look for a fix.
The fixes were different for anybody. Some lucky people could get it to work if they simply used it without their battery, but that defeats the purpose of it being a laptop. Some were virtually unfixable without a brand new motherboard, but in terms of laptops, a new motherboard is a new computer. In order to fix mine, I had to order a PCI Express to USB adapter. This at least gave me two more USB ports, which let me use a mouse and keyboard! After that, Windows reinstall and a BIOS flash fixed the keyboard and touchpad. For a while at least. As of now, I can only use an external mouse.
So, in the end, it all comes down to one thing: acer laptops are put together terribly, acer is bad, and their customer support is bad. Almost all of the computer repair guys I have talked to say that most of their customers bring in acer products. Their netbooks and monitors seem somewhat solid, but there is still customer support to deal with. Please, save yourself the trouble and do not buy acer products. I will post later what I see as the best products for their price in each category.
