Author's product rating: 
| Speed |
Slow |
| Look & Feel |
Satisfactory |
| Comfort & Portability |
Very poor |
| Robustness & Durability |
Very poor |
| Value For Money |
Very poor |
| Advantages: |
Combination device |
| Disadvantages: |
Very Poor quality |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
no |
I have been using the TravelMate C301 (which is in the C300 series) for
about a year now. I cannot but say that I could not have bought a notebook
computer worse than this.
The keyboard is so poor that after every few keystrokes, some key starts
repeating although its not physically stuck. You look at the screen and
realize that 50 'y's have appeared suddenly, and you have to delete them.
Gets very frustrating when you are doing important work. I can only work
well when i connect an external USB keyboard with it.
The screen is poor, If you see it at any angle other than a perfect setting
(which is difficult to get) you will see color variations.
The accuracy of the Pen when using it as a
tablet is poor, inspite of
caliberating it several times.
In less than a year, inspite of mostly using the
laptop on power, the
battery life has rapidly deteriorated. It never provided the promised 5
hours of battery life, and now its down to less than an hour.
Everything about the laptop reflect very poorly on the Acer brand. No
support, cheap plastic. The color of the area of the palmrest faded within 2
months of usage.
The device generates so much heat that its impossible to confortably use it
on your lap. You can feel the head affecting your muscles in the thigh,
eventually making you put the laptop somewhere else.
The weight of the notebook is also too much. I was aware of this problem
when I bought it, but didnt realize that it would actually hinder usability.
What happens is, because of the weight, you can never really use it as a
tablet PC by holding it in your hands. I tried reading some ebooks while
sleeping, and could not bear the weight of the device for long.
I bought the laptop, as at the time (about 1 year ago) only Acer had a full
convertible notebook / tablet PC combo. Toshiba was an option but it had
lower specs. I am sure I would have been much happier with the lower specs
in comparison the the frustrating experience of using this Acer product.
Although I paid about $2000 for this piece, by no means a cheap device.
I have also realized that I am not the only person having these problems.
Almost all
other users have the same issues.
I have decided never to buy an Acer product again ever.
