The Acer Guy

For anyone interested in what’s going to happen over at Gateway (and Packard Bell) now that both have been bought by Acer, there’s a pretty good interview with JT Wang, Acer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer over at Business Week.

Apart from discussing the pros and cons of the deal, the long-term strategy and the money involved, the interview also talks about the future of Gateway under the Acer umbrella and, more importantly, the future of its employees.

JT Wang said

“Gateway has good awareness, good positioning, but people consider this a company with no future. They have a team of good people who have been hanging on for many years, even with no financial support or resources. So we said there is something valuable inside. We want to keep the business. The synergies calculated don’t include laying off people.”

My first notebook was a Gateway. It had a 13″ screen back in 1995 so you can imagine how much I paid and how attached I became to it.

Personally, I’m thrilled to be linked with the company that allowed me to develop the skills I use on a daily basis today, and am delighted to hear that it will come out of this bigger and better than before.

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Have you just bought an Acer product and now you want to personalize it?

I don’t know about you but I’ve been there a hundred times before. You hand over your hard-earned cash and then because of the cost of shelf space in that High Street PC shop, you’re left with no option other than trawling through eBay for dodgy, unofficial products that a) are NOT covered by Acer warranties and b), should the worst happen and they fry your notebook, invalidate the cover you thought you had…

Well, Acer have spent the last couple of months coming up with a solution and it’s quite an simple one.

If you live in Germany, France, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden or Italy, click over to your local Acer website and have a look for this button.

That’s right. Acer have opened up their own online store.

Now before cries of “What about the Indirect Model?!?!” come flashing through the mailbox from ingrates, notice that there are no PCs or notebooks on sale here. The idea of the Acer Store is, to use an Acer-ism, to Empower your purchase.

If you want to customize it by buying a spare battery, extra power cord, a docking port or just a specially designed bag, then the Acer Store might just have what you need. And if you want an easy way to extend your warranty, there’s no easier place than this.

Right now it’s open for Germany France and the UK. By the end of the week (fingers crossed) the other countries will be online and ready for business. If you live outside these countries and think you’d like an Acer Store where you live, please leave a comment. You never know who’s reading…

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No, it’s not a reference to Miles Davis, although from what I’ve heard the event was pretty cool. Acer has just published some photos from the Annual Global Press Conference in Madrid (you know, the one I couldn’t go to because my wife was about to give birth to Alex).

OK, I would have streamed it somewhere live given half the chance but these will have to do.

If you weren’t there, ignore the “Welcome to Madrid!!!” and “Spanish dinner at Negralejo” links. Just click on “Acer Global Press Conference“.

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There is something about events like this that transcends all words, all feelings, all thoughts.

The picture you’re looking at is me and my new son, Alex who arrived late Saturday night. Why pictures of me? Because if this blog’s going to have the slightest chance of surviving, it’s going to have to be a lot less about faceless support queries and a lot more about the people who work in, for and around Acer.

That’s why I chose to put the word “guy” in the name in the first place.

I have been getting quite a few mails from people asking for technical support. Some of the questions have been eye-openers for me and have taught me more about my job than anything I’ve done while working for Acer. But others have been sharing disappointment in Acer, its products and support services as if trying to prove a point.

There’s a flip side to all discussions of course. Nobody thinks that opening a blog is all glory and pats on the back. You open the doors on behalf of someone else and the complaints will arrive and I have been both expecting and learning from them. But unfortunately for anyone thinking this is a platform to get under Acer’s skin I’m afraid it doesn’t go much deeper than that.

This blog is a window onto Acer’s world and I’m really glad it’s here. It’s put new life into the work I do and has taught me to feel, respect and listen to the voices and concerns of anyone who has anything to do with Acer. What it isn’t - at least for now - is a window for Acer onto The Acer Guy readers’ worlds. By that I don’t mean that Acer isn’t looking - they have eyes and ears everywhere. What I mean is that this blog isn’t connected to the inner workings of Acer other than the fact that I know a few email addresses and am persuasive when I write.

It’s just me (and Simone) who kind of like what we do and get a lot out of extending the reach of our own individual professions.

So by all means ask for help. Keep sending in questions as 9 times out of 10 they’re great ideas for posts (I promise I’ll post the How to put XP on 5920 soon). Just don’t expect me to rattle cages inside Acer, hold meetings, lynch senior managers and settle your scores.

Now that Alex is here, I’ve got my own battles to fight!

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Was it me or was the site down all afternoon?

I won’t know until later on but my Google Analytics page tells me we had a blip.

Have any of you noticed the Twitter widget over there on the right. I put it there as I’m convinced most of you don’t know what I do during the day and just choose to ignore you

Call it paranoia. Call it transparency… Now you’ll know.

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Here’s the last of five user reviews of the Aspire 5920. Many thanks to Terry Campbell for this:

I was shopping for a notebook for college and felt what better kind of notebook to get than a ‘gamer’ notebook. Currently I am in a BA program for Video Game Art & Design, so I didn’t want just a decent notebook for college - I wanted something with at least a good video card that can handle 3D modeling and games. It needed to be something that could run software like Autodesk 3DS Max 9, Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, Macromedia Studio, and work with a Wacom tablet. Originally I was eyeing the Toshiba X205 at Best Buy, but a tech friend of mine there recommended the Acer Aspire 5920G instead stating it was nearly just as good as the X205, but at a steal of a price – nearly $1000 less. Does it do the job?

Here is the breakdown:

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium
System Manufacturer: Acer, inc.
System Model: Aspire 5920G-6313
BIOS: ZD1 v1.3708 3G08
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5250 @ 1.50GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM DDR2
160GB SATA HDD
Realtek HD Audio + Subwoofer & Dolby Home Theater
1 Input
1 Mic Input
Dual Built In Microphone
1 Headset SPDIF
Toshiba Dual Layer +/- DVD-RW
HD DVD ROM (read-only)
802.11a/b/g WLAN
Bluetooth
VCM Software Installed
Bluetooth Button Installed (No Internal Bluetooth Device) L
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT Turbocache
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 1008 MB
Dedicated Memory: 241 MB
Shared Memory: 767 MB
Resolution: 1280 x 800 (32 bit) (60Hz)
DirectX 10
15.4” WXGA Acer CrystalBrite
4 USB Ports
1 HDMI
1 S-Video Out
1 VGA
1 Ethernet
1 Modem 56k
1 Firewire Port
1 SD Card Reader/Memory Stick Pro
1 Express Card Slot
IR Receiver
Crystal Eye Webcam

For a first notebook I mainly liked the price for all the features that came with it for around $1,000. As for appearances I liked the sleek look and finish on the outside and inside it has a sort of off-white color giving it an overall classy look. It did not feel too heavy or too wide, putting it into my backpack and carrying it around to class and work has not been a problem at all. The first thing I loved about it was the keyboard as the keys were very comfortable to type on. My only problems while typing was brushing the touchpad with my palm causing the virtual scrolling to move my screen around which can easily be disabled in the touchpad settings. Also another problem I had was accidently brushing against the bottom ‘record’ media button on the right hand side causing the cd burning software to launch, pretty annoying, so I disabled that feature. I haven’t tested if reinstalling will allow me to use the keys for Windows Media Player since I use that for my media library and accessing my Windows Media Center PC. When I take it out to class, work, or the library the battery lasts about 2-3hrs if I keep the screen brightness down to its lowest dim setting. Setting it to max setting the battery seems to last a little over an hour. The WiFi WLAN feature on the 5920G works great both in home and out in public. I tested it at the library, coffee shop, McDonalds, and some friend’s houses - all connected fine without any problems.

As for the sound it is great, but the volume seems a little faint even when maxed out. This is especially noticeable when video or teleconferencing. Either that or I need to clean my ears. Also where is this subwoofer listed on the features list? Either it is faint or again I need to clean my ears. Even with DFX software installed to enhance the sound and base – I didn’t notice a sub difference. It isn’t a huge deal to me as I don’t use my notebook to listen to music or movies since that is what I mainly use my MP3 player or Media Center PC for.

What I really do like about this notebook compared to my old desktop is I can run a lot of stuff at once. I used to be a neat freak with my old desktop and would hardly run many things at once, even the system tray would be devoid of useless software running in the background just to keep things running smoother. With this notebook, despite the 1.5GHz, I can run a lot at once in the system tray, a 3D intensive game, and some graphic design software without breaking much of a sweat at all. I also liked how easily I was able to install a wireless Xbox 360 controller as well as the PS3’s Sixaxis via the USB ports. Also underneath the notebook doesn’t seem to get hot much at all except a little warm in the bottom top left corner near the vents.

One bummer was Best Buy had advertised this model as having Bluetooth. The first month I had this notebook I never pressed the button to notice if it was actually a working device or not, but noticed all the time the Acer VCM software that supports it. Finally after getting a Bluetooth headset I noticed while syncing it and pressing the Bluetooth button on the 5920G – “No Device”. Luckily, the headset that comes with the wireless 360 controller works, but now I’m stuck with a useless Bluetooth headset. Another bummer that I am not used to is not having a factor default restore disk. Thankfully I immediately made one and you should also before you make any changes or installations to your 5920. The hard drive is partitioned and does come with software that uses that extra half for backing up. Still I would suggest to make a DVD backup of your initial factory default before doing anything else to the notebook.

The video quality is great and not much can be said accurately about the NVIDIA 8600M GT yet because the DirectX10 card chipset is seemingly still a baby to the market by 3-4 months. Not to mention Vista is not that old either and we all know how good new OS’s are to deal with until the first service pack arrives. Now I found the stock drivers to be fairly primitive, but functional. However for a ‘gamer’ notebook Acer should be prepared to release more driver support for it since not all games work well with the same drivers. Using modded drivers is at your own risk, but I am currently using the 163.44 from Laptop Video 2 Go (http://www.laptopvideo2go.com) with the August BIOS update 2708 from Acer. The main problem with most modded drivers is the game either doesn’t improve or new problems arise like the notebook won’t wake back up out of sleep mode. With the 163.44 and BIOS update I can say the 5920G does not have those problems. As for games running on this notebook, I have only tried one game and one demo so far with it. The first game was Final Fantasy XI (DirectX 8).

First it must be stated that the game was optimized for DirectX 8 and has no window mode. Because of that Windows users have had to use homebrew software called Windower (www.windower.net) to play the game in window mode, but to get it working you have to uninstall the Microsoft eHome Transreceiver as it causes it to crash as the game loads up. Luckily, SquareEnix is currently working on making a window mode for the game to release this winter along with the next expansion Wings of the Goddess. I think the delay has something to do with it being coded into DirectX 9 in order for it to work. Either way in full screen or Windower, the frame rate much like in Guild Wars takes a big dive into the single digits on both the Acer stock drivers and the 163.44 drivers+BIOS update. This was a bummer and reason I made the update. Whenever I came into heated battles the frame rate dropped from 25fps to as low as 2fps – pretty embarrassing for something that is recommended for a GeForce FX 5500. I mean Second Life runs faster than this and that is pretty sad. I am definitely ruling this one out on a combination of the current state of the drivers, the game being made for DirectX8, and perhaps also Windows Aero causing this. Then again it is nice to be able to flip the game in 3D.

Next I tried the demo for Bioshock.

For a mid-range GPU I was fairly surprised how amazing Bioshock ran on the Acer 5920G, which appeared to run at a smoother frame rate than Bioshock running on my Xbox 360. Not to mention how easily it worked with the 360 controller without any setup. I was worried about playing this demo because the first attempt at a DX10 demo was Lost Planet, which kept crashing during install. Mind you this was prior to the 163.44+BIOS update. Either way Bioshock further proves how well the 163.44 modded driver + 3708 BIOS update works.

As for my graphic design software, 3DS Max 9 works great AFTER you install the Service Pack 2 update making it compatible with Vista. However, for it to run it does disable Windows Aero. No lag or slow frame rates when animating in the software. Photoshop and Illustrator do the same thing for compatibility reasons, but the software does not have any problems running on the 5920G at all. Macromedia Flash 8 was the only software that was allowed to run in Windows Aero mode.

No problems noticed in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.

Overall this is a notebook I would suggest to any graphic design student or someone going into game design. The 163.44 graphics driver + 3708 BIOS update works fine for the 5920. Also if you do purchase this laptop, do not forget to make a recovery backup before making any changes or installations to Vista since it does not come with any recovery cd’s. If you do not mind dealing with a new video card chipset that will of course be a little future proof to run your games and graphic design software then this is the economic notebook to get.

Terry “TC” Campbell

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I just looked at the date stamp of the last post here and realized it’s been weeks since my last post.

How very un-loyal of me!

There’s been a lot going on and fortunately it never seems to stop. I never made it to the Global Conference in Madrid but I’m told it was pretty amazing. I’m probably not supposed to post this but here’s a sneak preview of what it was like.

I was there in slogans…

I like the way Acer has changed direction lately. It seems like ever since the arrival of the Gemstone, we’ve got a whole new identity thing going on and it’s a really refreshing experience to be behind the new language. More interesting still is the fact that quite a lot of this new language was generated through the conversations I’ve had here on this blog.

When you write for someone else (translators take note), not only do you have to learn their language, you also have to understand the way they “push” their mission (if they have any) and core values (again, if they have any). That’s why when you read a lot of adverts for technology products, the language is always the same. The product managers see their products as competitors of other, similar products and the language they use (read: approve) to describe them is, well, identical. Yawn.

What’s happening in Acer is slightly different, at least for the Gemstone models. When it was launched we pulled out the stops (anyone remember the teaser campaign on the Acer sites?) and the result was, emm… incredible. Suddenly we had a cool product on our hands (very un-Acer) and because Acer has a very short track record of cool products (Ferrari’s aside), we also had a clean sheet when it came to describing it.

Acer got “in touch” with nature again with the Gemstone and suddenly we realized that we weren’t paying enough attention to promoting all the efforts that goes into Acer’s extensive environmental policies so we started to write about that and then it was time for a new corporate brochure so how do you think the language came out?

Now you may think that marketing is just rubbish. I somethimes have my doubts too… But there’s a flip side. You see when you listen to the outside world (me on this blog-island), look at what you’ve got (”cool” products, riding the wave of runaway popularity, global expansion with Gateway) and tell the story in the language you learn through conversations like these, the marketing message goes “inwards” as well as “outwards” and you transform the company from “add-on” to “full-on”. It’s great!

But enough about me.

I guess you all heard of the new model line up? No? Have a look over on Trusted Reviews.

Apart from the really dinky Aspire 2920 ultra-portable (miniature Gemstone? Brilliant!), there’s also a new Ferrari 1110 coming.

I’ve seen the Ferrari in the flesh and it’s a great little thing with an integrated slot-loading DVD player at last!! But more on that later… For now it’s just great to be talking again.

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