Acer founder says open to takeover amid stock price slide

Let's hope that this won't happen.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/27/us-acer-m-a-idUSKCN0QW0MQ20150827

 

I am not sure it would be a bad thing - depending on the buyer. I personally don't think Acer has been that good for consumers. They bought Gateway then dragged it down to their eMachine brand level. I sure don't think of Acer when someone asks, "What are the quality, reliable brands"?

I would not want another company to buy them out then terminate the brand altogether because fewer choices is never good for competition or consumers. But if another company can come in, turn it around and have the company make top quality, reliable, and affordable products, that would be good for everybody.

 

The really sad story was the Gateway small business and government division. They resold decent Intel gear, and had great support. Acer didn't want them, so they got spun off to some clueless competitor that killed them off.

 

I am well aware of the poor quality of Acer consumer laptops, but I have heard that their TravelMate business laptops are of very high quality. Maybe someone can confirm this?

 

Meh! I will not buy another Acer again.

 

My very first and only PC I bought for myself (I've built my own since then) was a Gateway 486 I bought directly from the Gateway factory in 1993 as a gift to myself after my divorce. They were still 100 miles north of where I live, up in North Sioux City. It was a great machine that lasted many years and was replaced only because I wanted newer, faster technologies - not because the Gateway broke. Even though I've built all my own after that, I was sad to see Gateway go downhill and get bought out.

You need to read the reviews. I don't believe you will see "very high quality" in any of them. Two 2015 examples:

Tech Radar: Acer Travelmate P645 - performs adequately
NotebookCheck: Acer P246-M (their bold) - The quality is only satisfactory

That is not to say you will have quality or reliability problems if you buy an Acer. After all, computers, including notebooks, are basically an assembly of parts made by someone else. For example, ASUS and Foxconn are popular OEM motherboard makers. The drives may come from Seagate or WD and the RAM from Micron or some other OEM maker. And the display panel from who knows where. But all these makers have different quality lines so it is this assemblage of parts, and how they are configured by Acer that determine the over all quality and reliability and performance. And of course with any factory made computer, and especially notebooks which tend to have many proprietary features, it is all the other junk they foist on us that matter to many too.

 

@Bill_Bright Thanks for the information.

 

My very first computer was an Acer netbook and it gave great value for the money. And now I have bought a new Acer laptop just 7 months ago. It is giving solid performance. The only problem I had was with the OS that I myself had screwed up. I'm very happy with Acer laptops and they make good affordable laptops.

 

I have a 5 year old Acer laptop and it is performing well to my expectations but not on the level that I want it to perform say, versus my desktop. That is why I always often use my desktop instead of the laptop. Can't use it to try out software I want as when you do an image restore often it takes time for it to boot fast enough in comparison to where I started. So I use it only for menial things. Service is also bad in my part of the world as the tech almost always use the ALT>F10 to fix things...lazy.

 

Currently I'm quite satisfied with my Acer Predator desktop, it outperforms crappy PC's from HP and ASUS which I had to return. And yes, I remember Gateway I bought a high end laptop in 2000, but they don't sell the brand over here in Holland anymore.

@ Everyone: interesting posts, thanks.

 

@ronjor I think in your case you've been lucky not to have had problems, particularly when considering it is a low end model. However, I do really like the design of the new models you linked to.

 

Cool stuff. I'm currently also an Acer fan.

 

BTW, I just noticed that HP has also renewed their desktop line. They look kinda nice, but over here in Europe they are still way too expensive, same goes for ACER. I'm really jealous of you guys in the USA, for about 1000 to 1200 euro, you can buy a state of the art gaming PC. In Holland you will have to pay 1700 euro.

http://store.hp.com/us/en/cat/desktops

 

I used ACER Predators for at least the past 8 years, first via the Gateway F/X Series, a rebranded Predator for US market after ACER acquired Gateway. They always performed well and I always thought they gave the biggest bang for the buck in the mid-level gaming rig market. A big attraction was that their processors were fast, came with abundant memory, and they came with a 500W power supply, very unusual at the time, that cried out for a GPU upgrade.

I am using an ASUS ROG GR 20AJ atm, but have a new Predator I am not using. I had that Predator shipped overnight from Amazon when upgrading to Windows 10 the first night totally borked my ASUS. It was not fixable. Windows 10 had erased everything and had only partially installed Windows 10. I could not even install 8.1 with a box retail set because my CD driver had been wiped and a new one had not been installed when my upgrade got stuck. A reset or refesh required a Windows 10 installation disk. Because I am disabled it is dangerous for me to be w/o a PC for more than a day.

The ACER upgraded to W 10 in an hour. Sadly, though it has a Realtek HD Sound Card it does not have the full control panel (can not even adjust treble and base) and instead relied as it's main sound enhancer/controller Creative's Cinema which is excellent. Cinema is an OEM product taht does not work in Windows 10 and Creative has said it will not update it and that is the Manufacturer's responsibility. In any event, I was able to get my ASUS going again with the Recovery Drive I made for the ACER in W 10. But I wound up with a hybrid, an ASUS with a lot of ACER Software, including it's BIOS. I was able to reinstall all the ASUS stuff but still have an ACER in an ASUS Tower. But it runs fast as ever. Decided to keep the ACER for emergencies and it's main use now is recharging my cell phone and electronic cigarettes. It's a very nice machine for the money, but the ASUS is faster cuz it has more memory and more memory on the GPU. They both have a 4790 processor and a 760 GTX. Price approx. $1,200.

 

I'm also happy with my Acer Predator, but I wish they were less expensive. I would have loved to have a bigger SSD and a better GPU.

BTW, Micheal Dell has also said that he expects that only Lenovo, HP and Dell will survive. That would be really disastrous because, Lenovo is a joke with all those privacy related issues, Dell is way too expensive even with lower end machines, and the last time I bought an HP Envy desktop, it was a complete disaster.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/07/us-dellinc-ceo-idUSKCN0R71IS20150907

 

Just wondering how do you rate Acer Laptops.

Mine is Acer Aspire E5-473-P3NZ series manuctured date 6/22/2015 with Windows 8.1 OS

Any tweaks and programs you know to improve its performance?

 

Because notebook makers just assemble parts from other OEM suppliers, you really cannot go by the brand name of the assembler. For example, many notebooks from many makers use the same OEM ASUS motherboard with the same OEM graphics solution, the same OEM Seagate drive, and the same OEM Micron RAM using the same LG LCD monitor panel.

So, notebook makers have to distinguish their products with proprietary designs and extras (Junk? Fluff?) they jam on their systems.

There really is nothing you can do to improve performance for your Acer that is unique for Acer notebooks but disable any proprietary Acer extras that run in real-time you no longer need. Otherwise, you need to keep your system updated, scanned, and clean of clutter and heat trapping dust, just as you need to do with any computer.

 

Buy Stardock Start Menu 8. It turns your Windows 10 start menu into a Windows 7 start menu. It has the control panel menu. The Windows 10 tiles goes away completely with Start Menu 8. Start Menu 8 is better than Start Menu 10. All the Control Panels are accessible. Control panels are not hidden like in the default Windows 10 Metro start menu. Windows 10 start menu is just a start menu button with a metro tiles in it. Start Menu 8 $4.99 converts the Windows 10 and Windows 8 to a full Windows 7 start menu.

Stardock http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/