The Third Bit

I bought an Acer Aspire 3620 three and a half weeks ago, primarily because it was light (under four pounds) and cheap (nine hundred dollars).  It’s been nothing but trouble; most recently, I’ve been wrestling with the fact that when it puts itself to sleep, there’s no way to wake it up short of power cycling it — which is rather embarrassing when you’re in the middle of a lecture, and it insists on doing a disk check as it comes back up.

I called Acer tech support twice last week, and again this morning. The guy in Texas had a solution that seemed to work the first time I tried it, but failed miserably on all repeats. When I called back with that news, he said I should send it in for repairs, since it was clearly defective.  Four to six weeks; no replacement in the interim.  I asked for an email confirming that he thought it was a machine-specific problem, and the bounds on the turnaround.  When he refused, I asked to speak to a supervisor; he again refused, and then hung up on me.

So fifteen minutes ago, I called Apple and ordered a Macbook.  They say it’ll be here early next week (Tuesday, maybe Wednesday).  It’ll be my first Mac; I expect a chorus of “w00ts!” from all the students and colleagues whose Macs I’ve been mocking for the last few years.  (“That’s not a real computer — how can it be a real computer with only one mouse button?” and “Here’s a quarter, kid; go buy yourself a real operating system.”)  Wish me luck…

Greg Wilson Uncategorized