Acer r3

[skillz21]

Hey guys. This isn't strictly about electronics but i really dont have time to make a new account fora different forum.
So i am thinking of buying the acer r3 tommorow. I am a school student and i am thinking of buying one (https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/laptops/acer/acer-r3-131t-p73t-11-2-in-1-notebook/720864/).
Ok here are the questions:
-Is the processor SoC?
-this is for anyone out there who lives in new south wales australia and is in high school: should i buy it as a first laptop?
-i read some reviews about the laptop, some seelm to say that the vieving angle is small. Is this true.
- if you have this laptop: what are the pros and cons?

Thanks guys. I hope i dont get kicked from the forum for writing this. Any help is greately appreciated

[wraper]

It is SoC in BGA package. Cheap TN LCD panels will always suck.

[senso]

Not knowing the Australian market nor the available models, that is a very, very wimpy CPU, its more or less a core2duo from 2007.
In Portugal por around 500-600€ you can bet way better, not sure about australia.

[crispy_tofu]

this is for anyone out there who lives in new south wales australia and is in high school: should i buy it as a first laptop?

Oh look, that's me! 
Another laptop you might want to consider is the Inspiron 11 3000 series from Dell Outlet. The cheap ones are advertised as 'minor cosmetic wear', which is a gamble, but still great for the price (i3-4030U for ~$500 including delivery!).
Personally, I have an Acer Chromebook (CB3-111) - it's meh, even after installing Ubuntu. I don't specifically know how your school teaches, but a Windows laptop would be extremely useful because it can actually run things... 
Just my 2c

[peter.mitchell]

At that price point it's going to be garbage build quality, i suggest keeping an eye out on ebay for a 2 year old business grade lenovo or HP laptop, it will be much better built, you'll be able to get parts for it anywhere, its performance will be better and you will be able to get other specs which simply arent available in that price range on non-business laptops, like a 1080p screen.

[skillz21]

So icant install extra ram on this?

[wraper]

So icant install extra ram on this?

Often one RAM channel is soldered on the PCB but second is usual RAM slot so is upgradeable, most likely DDR3L sodimm in your case. You should research/google yourself which expansion slots it does have.

[XOIIO]

Agreed, seems like a pretty crap laptop, I suggested in another thread the Lenovo T410s, you can get them for under $200 usd, they are fantastic machines, and you can upgrade the ram just fine. Here's my previous blurb about them.

think a thinkpad might be a pretty good option, I'm not sure if new ones still have ESATA ports, but I have a T410s which does (it's a combination esata/usb), and they are great machines, at least the ones which still use magnesium for the chassis and laptop lid.

It has a core i5 and is pretty capable, though not for gaming. It's also just been sitting since I got a new gaming laptop through an educational grant, man I should find a use for it lol.

One thing is that it uses an MSATA hard drive, but I was too broke for that (the thing had a busted screen, no battery, no ram, no cd drive) so I grabbed a cd drive adapter, and stuck a terabyte in there. I hardly use CD drives anyways so it was well worth it.

My experience comes from that and below (the t10s or possibly t20 was a long time computer of mine), not sure how the new ones are bloatware wise but you can easily wipe and reinstall to get rid of that stuff. The thinkpads used to be made by IBM anyways, so if they kept the quality up as I've seen from mine, you won't have to worry.

The t410s can be had for less than $200 on ebay which is pretty darn good. It was a $1400 machine originally. Depending on how you are budget wise you could buy one, try it out, and resell it locally if you didn't like it.


Sure that one looks more modern, and has a touchscreen (which the t410s had an option for), but aside from that it's pretty, well just plain disappointing. The t410s will give you an msata SSD, plus you can do as I did and get an ebay ultrabay adapter to whack a terabyte drive in if you need the storage space.

[skillz21]

Guys i want to get this for school as a FIRST laptop. I know it is not very good but i will only be doing word , excel ect

[crispy_tofu]

Sure, but long loading times are painful, trust me. 
By the way, since this is most likely BYOD, then the wifi might also be a problem. At my school, we have to have dual-band (5GHz) WiFi, otherwise it won't work without an adapter (which is annoying because you'll lose them, etc.). Something to look out for, I'm not sure what it's like at other schools.

[RGB255_0_0]

Swap in a Samsung 850 EVO and the laptop will be usable. Terrible for CPU tasks but the SSD will take away much of the headache of using it.

Still, there are certainly better options with an i3 or i5 that will be better overall and will have much less buyer's remorse afterwards. If your budget won't allow to get at least the i3 and SSD, at least get the SSD.

[skillz21]

This is my school's policy
http://www.kooringalhigh.com/byod/selecting%20and%20purchasing.html
Is the WiFi compatible?

[skillz21]

Guys I don't think  you are getting the point here. This is my first laptop. And seriously, I know that it will be slow, but the fastest laptop we own is currently a i3. My slowest PC is cre duo, around one GHz. I am used to slow... I was asking whether it will be suitable for word, PowerPoint, and online research. Is there anything that you guys think is good with this laptop? Like I recon for the price, it is OK... Let me know what you think

[crispy_tofu]

This is my school's policy
http://www.kooringalhigh.com/byod/selecting%20and%20purchasing.html
Is the WiFi compatible?

It looks like you'll need 5GHz WiFi, so that means 'ac' or 'a/b/g/n' WiFi. The Acer R3 has ac WiFi, so that should be compatible. 

[skillz21]

ok guys, ran into first problem , i have DGN1000 Netgear router. the laptop keeps saying that cant solve DNS and is not connected to the internet, even though it shows that the wifi is connected. when i tried to get on this website, it said the DNS adress cant be solved, then i quickely got on another laptop, the site loaded up just fine. what? so is there something whong with the wifi adapter inside or are the protecols not matching up? is there a setting in the router i can change to get a good wifi connection or is the internal wifi adappter faulty? if it is, its back to the store for a replacement.oh yeah if i disconnect and connect again, it sometimes works

[XOIIO]

We get the point, but for less than half that price second hand you can get vastly superior machines.

[edy]

Agreed, seems like a pretty crap laptop, I suggested in another thread the Lenovo T410s, you can get them for under $200 usd, they are fantastic machines, and you can upgrade the ram just fine. Here's my previous blurb about them.
...
The t410s can be had for less than $200 on ebay which is pretty darn good. It was a $1400 machine originally. Depending on how you are budget wise you could buy one, try it out, and resell it locally if you didn't like it. [/i]

Yes I agree.... Buy a Lenovo T410... I did!

I took your advice actually I think in the other thread and picked up a used Lenovo T410 for $240 CAD/AUS all-in, which is about $180 US. Free shipping, no tax.... from a local refurbisher here in Toronto. There are lots of these coming off corporate lease, they get cleaned up, fresh Win7 install and ready to go again like new. A few scuffs and scratches but no issues where it counts (i.e. screen perfect, keyboard perfect, no fading, everything works).

If I had to pick something up from BestBuy/Walmart it would have needed to be at least $212 before tax (ours it 13%). If I needed to pay for shipping, it would have probably cost another $20-30. So basically it is probably a sub-$200 CAD/AUS (or sub-$150 US) purchase.

My T410 Specs: Core i5 M520 2.4 Mhz with 4GB RAM, 280 GB HD. Intel HD graphics 1280x800. Win 7 Pro 64-bit.

What I'm finding is this:
1. Incredibly fast for Office XP... install an old one and it blazes by. I'm sure a newer one is also fast.
  - Also you can install Libre Office or OpenOffice
2. Photoshop 7 also very fast. You can use GIMP, IrfanView and others... fast
3. Desktop publishing apps open-source free like Scribus and Krita.
4. VLC and MPC Player both play HD movies without skipping a beat
5. Most utilities and non-gaming software, especially a few years older will run fast.
6. Simpler games, 2D games and even 3D from 2-3 years back will run fine.

The point is that if you are student and you want to save yourself some money, buy a used laptop. You will save a great deal of money and still have something very usable for many years, especially if you don't plan on gaming. If you are a gamer then even a $1000 laptop these days will be obsolete in a few years because games keep pushing the limits.... You will never be able to play the latest games on a 2-3 year old laptop, so if you must play the latest games you will need to keep upgrading your laptop every 2-3 years. If you are simply looking for something to do everything else reasonably well (except for gaming and heavy-duty 3D or video processing) then you can milk a laptop for 5, 6 or 7 years no problem... As long as you don't upgrade to the latest software which tends to be bloated and slow you down with otherwise useless features.

Thanks again for the T410 suggestion!

[XOIIO]

No problem, I'm glad you like it as much as I did when I used my t410s more, I find if you take care of the t series, they can last absolute ages, heck, in 5 years it should still work just fine, granted newer stuff will be better obviously, but for office stuff and watching youtube even the old t60p would work pretty well. Pretty awesome that you got it locally too.

It should be able to run windows 10 quite well too, actually possibly better than windows 7 since windows 10 has lower minimum requirements.

[skillz21]

Fixed it! just updated the software. it is working very well. i have so far been very happy about it. anyway guys thanks for your support