Proprietary case makes this one a loser.
Oct 19 '99
Okay. This was the second computer I purchased, so forgive any glaring lapse in judgement I may have had at the time. I purchased an Acer Aspire 200MMX Pentium in the spring of 1997, mainly because I could afford a new computer back then, and it had a nifty charcoal grey case. Much nicer looking than my old 486/25 little dinosaur of a machine.
It included a 6.4gig hard drive, 32MB of RAM (72 pin simms), an Mwave 33.6 sound card/fax/modem, a 3.5" floppy drive, and a 24X cd-rom. The setup instructions were color-coded-- easy enough for anyone with eyeballs to put together. Included software: Microsoft Works, Windows 95, Infopedia, and several games which were so mindblowingly boring that I've forgotten what they are. It also included a year's subscription to Concentric's internet service. There's room for four ISA cards, two PCI cards, and another hard drive in the case.
The machine works well enough. I was able to add a SCSI color flatbed scanner and another 96MB of RAM without any trouble. I've also been able to add another hard drive and a network interface card. I did encounter some wretched conflicts when I tried to install a Hotport CD-R drive, but that's a Hotport issue. The Mwave sound card/modem will also be rather ticky with new adapters-- it reserves several IRQs for itself, which makes for an ugly installation of new hardware.
The tone of the owner's manual is patronizing, at best. Sometimes it's downright insulting. "You put your CD in, you take your CD out", "You put your floppy in, you put your floppy out". Well, if you think that "AOL for Dummies" is a must-read, then the manual should be right up your alley.
The installation package includes an emergency CD which will enable you to boot the machine from the CD-ROM drive, and re-format and re-install all OEM software. It isn't anywhere near as grueling as it sounds, provided you've backed up any additional files or applications you've installed.
My only real issue with the Acer company is the style of the minitower case-- the rounded front sharply curtails future upgrades. You cannot install a faster CD-ROM or CD-RW drive due to the curved shape of the CD drawer. Nor can you install a LS 120 super floppy drive. The RAM is limited to 128MB.
Given the number of PC parts manufacturers out there, I'd sooner shop around for components and assemble a machine using a generic case. Less restricting by far.
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Epinions.com ID:
elegiac
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Member: Gregory Chin
Reviews written: 70
Trusted by: 414 members
About Me:
My family operates a computer services business. Bit of hardware, bit of webstuff. Kooky, no?
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