What laptop should I buy?

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(10-27-2018 09:04 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Hmph. Never heard of the model B115. Why such a long lag between mfg. date and when got it - did you get it used?

No, it was new. Perhaps some leftover stock of an older model - the XPS 13 is definitely one such case, as it's a 9343 (the end-of-2016 model) when the 9350 was already out.
The stickers on the back have text like "TravelMate B115 series" and "TMB115-M-41RQ" on them. Another text I (re-?)discovered is definitely a lie: "This device contains WLAN+Bluetooth module INTEL 7260 HMW AN", I know there's a Broadcom chip inside.

(10-27-2018 09:04 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Anyhow, stuff can happen with any manufacturer's line, or even a single machine, it doesn't mean every TravelMate Acer made would have similar issues, and I get you're not saying that, just worth pointing it out. As I noted, I've sold well over 100 TM's over many years, and never had a complaint, other than some upgrades from HD -> SSD, add RAM, upgrade to Win-10, etc.

The other two B115's in my family as well as two Aspire-branded ones (V3-111P-P06A) with what seems to be the same hardware other than a touchscreen and a differently colored shell (silver instead of black) all had the same touchpad issues. The keyboard problem might be more pronounced for me because I tap the keys pretty lightly (meaning they bounce more), but when I had to troubleshoot some unrelated software issues on one of the other machines, the keyboard felt the same, so it's not limited to this particular machine. The cracked shell was limited to my device, but it appears one of the others was on its way there too, as one screw broke out (mine has lost three, and a fourth looks suspiciously tilted in its hole).
After pulling it out of storage to read the labels, I found out that I misremembered one thing: it wasn't the power cable that was hard to insert after the shell broke, but the audio jack (it's in the back of the left edge, right were the power cable in the XPS 13 goes). I use headphones quite often, so that port got a cable inserted about as often as the power supply. Anyway, that's unimportant, but I felt like mentioning it in case someone wonders how the power cable hole can be blocked like that (it's in the center of the back edge).

Sure, there may be devices that aren't as bad. If your customers are happy with their TravelMates, then that's just fine. And I get what you're hinting at, namely that there are plenty of people who don't complain because they have nothing to complain about. All you can see online are the complaints by people who do have problems. On the other hand, those complaints can serve as data points in issue probability (needs an estimate of the number of satisfied customers) / issue severity statistics, which can be a useful guide for buying a new device. So this report boils down to: 5 people close to me (myself included) had trouble with the input hardware on Acer laptops produced about 4 years ago (though it's possible that some of these come from the same batch).