Kudos to Grooovy who posted the original deal a few weeks back. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/552559
Now $100 less.
Full HD IPS matte touchscreen, 72% NTSC and 300 nits brightness. Very light at 990g. 1x HDMI, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.1 (Type-C, Gen 1), 2x USB 3.0 Reviews are generally favorable.
(P.S sorry user mrdevil, it's $100 cheaper now XD ) I bought one for a friend just now. Cheers guys.
Thanks, fixed the title. I like the screen on these. Been watching all the Lenovo posts also but those wait times ikr. I think this one struck a happy medium.
So having just picked one up…
Sticker price at HN on the box is $1799.00!
Lady at HN unsuccessfully tried to get me to purchase extra warranty "even if button fall off, we give you full refund".
I purchased this for an older teen student.
The machine itself is really light (uner 1kg) - being 14" fits well with A4 books etc. So while there are cheaper Lenovo machines about, a little extra is worth it in this case.
The specs are fine. 8GB ram is OK, and a single 230GB odd disk partition should be plenty. Processor is fast - the thing boots within 5 seconds and everything run so far is snappy and smooth. Too much crapware on it though.
Touchscreen is great…which is good because the touchpad on Acers are middle of the pack for me, so poking at the screen is often preferred.
Comes with a DC charger - but it looks like USB C charging also is supported which is great as this is the future.
End of the day I think it will fit the use case well. I would expect to get about 3 years out of it.
To eliminate the bloatware would it be good to use the fresh start option in Windows?
Im wondering this also, gotta set it up for a friend who wants to write a book and don't want bloatware. How does Windows work these days? Just download the appropriate version and use the key on the underside of the lappy?
Thanks guys for any advice
@ninjataki: There is no sticker with a key any more as far as I am aware.
Last I heard there is a key in the BIOS that is checked during setup, this may have changed.
You should still be able to create install from a USB install from a USB, download the ISO file etc but I think the simplest option is to do a fresh start from settings - I think this way you still have the drivers from the factory.
I tried the fresh start (settings - search for reset) the other day on an old lenovo thinkpad yoga 460 and there was no bloatware afterwards.
Damn this would be my near perfect realistic laptop (Ryzen 4000 and a good screen never happens) if I didn't already have one I'm comfortable with.
Light ✅
Good screen ✅
8GB RAM ✅
Core i5/Ryzen 5 ✅
Navy blue ✅
Under $1000 ✅
Touchscreen ❎ (as a student it's annoying when others get their grubby mitts on my screen)
It's touchscreen doe
Yeah now they can mess with my screen which is annoying. I also love the confusion on their faces when it does nothing, I'm surprised touchscreen seems to be so ubiquitous. It's more of an annoyance to me.
Edit: I see what you mean. I should've put "non-touchscreen" there because it was based on the what I like about the laptop, not the boxes it ticks for me.
You can disable the touchscreen by disabling the touchscreen driver
Being antiglare, it does not look like a touchscreen though, so passers by will be less inclined to touch the screen - it looks like a regular monitor last time I looked at one of these.
At last a good deal with touch screen and backlit keyboard under $1000.
Looks like no touchscreen, but a nice computer. Went in to check it out the other day at Harvey Norman.
For brilliant brighter colours, the screen quality of the 14” Full HD IPS touchscreen
It has Thunderbolt too
This is making me want to sell my current less than 2 years old laptop because this one is way too perfect. TB3 at $996?! I ALSO FOUND IT HAS A FINGERPRINT READER!
I have the i7 model.
It has thunderbolt but it supports 15w charging only. So it won’t be enough to charge the laptop while using it.
And its speaker is not great.
Other than those, it is a good and light laptop.
Would you believe I ordered online via paypal for quick pickup (1 hour they say), and now I get an email telling me to wait 24 hours cause it needs to be 'reviewed' by their security team. Uh yeah thanks for that HN..
I knew there would be a trade off with this model. Battery life is 8 hours compared to an average of 14 hours with the other laptops reviewed.
https://au.pcmag.com/netbooks/65534/acer-swift-5-14-inch
My 10 hour laptop doesn't last 5 hours of typing in Word with the brightness at half, an undervolt and a healthy battery :(
RAM cant be upgraded btw…
Acer. nah
I understand the whole Acer stigma and agree with your nah to an extent. Anecdotally speaking, still got 2x 5720s (gpu hd2600) that are both going strong. They are business grade though, gottem from Harris tech on a mistake listing (they were mistakenly dedcribed as being Aspires and priced accordingly plus discount), deal of the century for me. Got an Acer Triton 700 gtx1080 and very much loving it, the build quality on that model is very good.
Having said that I am aiming Asus next time around 😄
What is your preference?
I am a laptop service engineer and I wince every time I have to open an Acer (or MSI. or HP some models are just wacky)
I prefer Dell, especially Latitude and Precision lines. You can often get Latitudes cheap with warranty (and extend warranty). I never ever buy retail. Latitude you can service and mod to your heart's content! they are well built and reliable.
I'll def keep that in mind when getting the next one thanks. Your thoughts on Asus?
@ninjataki: to be honest, the biggest issue with stepping outside the big player territory (Lenovo, Dell, HP) means limited support. This may be OK for someone, I don't recommend it
I have seen a fair share of them, they are built OK, but you need to understand that they have shorter life, and finding a part might be an impossible task later on
Latitude on the other hand means abundance of parts, and they are designed to run for a decade at least. Also the sweet spot is last generation or the generation before. They can be found cheap, with warranty attached, extend the warranty and rejoice :)
Got 1
Firstly I'm not a big fan of HN but this is pretty good deal
Can confirm is touch screen
Usual price is $1799
Also got the 3 year product care warranty for $329 making it 4 years warranty. Usually I don't sign up for the warranty but got it because of 3 things:
If the battery fails or doesn't pass the test (generally would fail after 2 years) you can bring it back and they can replace the machine with a current model. If it was $1700 and you paid $996 then you would be kind of getting a $1700 in the next 4 years and the battery will die that is for sure.
You can elect to take cash settlement of the original purchase amount if you wish if the machine fails within 4 years
You get 3 hardware and laptop services / tests over the 4 years included in the product care worth $150 per service (well I know is not worth that much)
Just my 2 cents
Which one is better? Acer Spin 3 SP314-54N-311V or Acer Swift 5 SF514-54T-58QX ?
JB Hi Fi selling Acer Spin 3 for $899
Is the ram self upgradable to 16gb and hdd to 512gb SSD?
Funnily enough was just heading out to get one now.
The Lenovo look like better deals, but need something now….cant wait until October.
BTW, price is $996 according to the link, not 997.