Is this a good deal?

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Elite Override

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I'm not a big fan of Hifi corporation, but this seems like a good deal to me:

Acer Emachines notebook (EME527-901): R3000
Intel Celeron 2.2Ghz
1GB ram
320GB hdd
DVD/CD writer
15.6" screen

You can view it in the Brochure (PDF) here, it's on the first page.

For some reason I can't find much info on this particular model online...

Please suggest another notebook if you don't like this for any reason. It should be in the same price range with more or less the same specs. 1 of the reasons I like this one is because it has a numpad, which I frequently use.
 
Regardless of the purchase, I'd say be careful with HiFi Corporation. They are sticky with warranty exchanges and repairs, and their products are often "grey", in other words not imported through the "official" channels, in this case Acer. This may imply that Acer SA may not cover your machine under warranty, which is risky, even with a R3,000 notebook.

My two cents.
 
rudirautenbach said:
Regardless of the purchase, I'd say be careful with HiFi Corporation. They are sticky with warranty exchanges and repairs, and their products are often "grey", in other words not imported through the "official" channels, in this case Acer. This may imply that Acer SA may not cover your machine under warranty, which is risky, even with a R3,000 notebook.

My two cents.
Click to expand...

Do you know of any similar deals? I too, am not fond of hifi corp.
 
Elite Override said:
Do you know of any similar deals? I too, am not fond of hifi corp.
Click to expand...

Looking through Incredible Connection's pages, maybe you want to have a look too? They are generally a little more expensive, but I have been buying from them for years and they are never full of nonsense to repair or replace something. And their goods are covered by back-to-back warranties from all the majors.

I recently bought my wife 2 Packard Bell machines from them (desktop touch screen and netbook) and I must say the machines impressed me, and have not had a single problem yet. They look good and perform well too.
 
rudirautenbach said:
Looking through Incredible Connection's pages, maybe you want to have a look too? They are generally a little more expensive, but I have been buying from them for years and they are never full of nonsense to repair or replace something. And their goods are covered by back-to-back warranties from all the majors.

I recently bought my wife 2 Packard Bell machines from them (desktop touch screen and netbook) and I must say the machines impressed me, and have not had a single problem yet. They look good and perform well too.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll take a look :)
 
Bought my father an HP notebook from HiFi a few years back as they were on special. The m/board died after 2 months, sent it back to HiFi and we had it back 2 weeks later, so no real problems. I wouldn't buy from them again though after what I've heard.

Also, would you want to buy a Celeron? Even though it's cheap, Celerons are painfully slow. Ok for a netbook, but for a notebook it's just going to be frustrating. Whenever we have to set one up it takes 3 - 4 times longer than anything else on our bench.
 
South_Bit said:
Bought my father an HP notebook from HiFi a few years back as they were on special. The m/board died after 2 months, sent it back to HiFi and we had it back 2 weeks later, so no real problems. I wouldn't buy from them again though after what I've heard.

Also, would you want to buy a Celeron? Even though it's cheap, Celerons are painfully slow. Ok for a netbook, but for a notebook it's just going to be frustrating. Whenever we have to set one up it takes 3 - 4 times longer than anything else on our bench.
Click to expand...

I don't have much to spend sadly, that's why I opted for the cheaper celeron notebook. Is a 1.6 Atom faster than a 2.2 celeron?

Also, how about this deal?
 
Atom's aren't fast either, they're designed for low power consumption, therefore slow. It all depends on what your requirements are. I have an Acer Aspire One with a 1.6GHz Atom and 8GB SSD running Ubuntu. All it's used for is web browsing and email - for that it's perfect. I wouldn't dare use it for anything that requires processing power.

What will you be using the new machine for? A Celeron running a few big apps, anti-virus etc is going to be slow, but if that's what your budget can afford, then that's that.
 
South_Bit said:
Atom's aren't fast either, they're designed for low power consumption, therefore slow. It all depends on what your requirements are. I have an Acer Aspire One with a 1.6GHz Atom and 8GB SSD running Ubuntu. All it's used for is web browsing and email - for that it's perfect. I wouldn't dare use it for anything that requires processing power.

What will you be using the new machine for? A Celeron running a few big apps, anti-virus etc is going to be slow, but if that's what your budget can afford, then that's that.
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I'll be using it mainly for university since I heard that their labs are always overcrowded. I might do some coding using Visual Studio 2010 and Matlab 2009. Gaming is a possibility although it will mostly be dota.

The reason I wanted a numpad was that blender (3d content creation app) uses the numpad extensively.
 
Elite Override said:
I might do some coding using Visual Studio 2010 and Matlab 2009. Gaming is a possibility although it will mostly be dota.
Click to expand...

All that on a Celeron? :wtf:
Dude, that's going to be painful. Really, VS2010 on a Celeron with 1GB memory will be nothing but frustration.
At the very least you should look at adding another 1 or 2GB memory on that machine.... maybe then...

http://starredreviews.com/emachines-eme527-2537-review/2300/
"Comparison Acer Aspire AS7741Z-5731 VS eMachines eME527-2537
If you can add 70$-100$ additional bucks to your budget you will get Acer Aspire AS7741Z-5731 which comes with Intel Pentium dual-core P6000 processor. Performance wise better than Intel Celeron 900 processor, FSB of P6000 is higher than Celeron 900.
The AS7741Z-5731 comes with 17.3″ HD LED-backlit screen while eMachines eME527-2537 comes with 15.6” WXGA screen."

If it's at all possible rather hold off until you can scrape together another 2 or 3K and then buy something better. With the Sandy Bridge processors hitting the mobile scene you should be able to pick up a decent i3 or even i5 soon.
No use spending your 3K and then being dissapointed. It might also be worth adding another 1K and then looking at 2nd hand deals.
 
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RaptorSA said:
All that on a Celeron? :wtf:
Dude, that's going to be painful. Really, VS2010 on a Celeron with 1GB memory will be nothing but frustration.
At the very least you should look at adding another 1 or 2GB memory on that machine.... maybe then...

If it's at all possible rather hold off until you can scrape together another 2 or 3K and then buy something better. With the Sandy Bridge processors hitting the mobile scene you should be able to pick up a decent i3 or even i5 soon.
No use spending your 3K and then being dissapointed. It might also be worth adding another 1K and then looking at 2nd hand deals.
Click to expand...

I'm hesitant to buy second hand since that battery would probably have to be replaced as well.

I do have a proper pc at home to do most coding on, what I meant was that I would probably just fix a few minor bugs on the notebook. I know VS2010 would be a pain, it's already a pain on my 2.8 dual core I use atm.

Let me explain the monetary situation:
I'm going to start studying this year. Thanks to my matric results the university is going to pay me R13 500 back on my first year of studies. But, my dad will be paying for my studies until I have finished my degree and then I have to start paying him back. I am going to ask him to give me around 3-4k of the money I saved with my results, to buy me a notebook to make my life slightly easier. I want to have most of those savings (the 13k) to go into my studies since I have to pay my dad back.
 
Might be wrong here, but I do believe HiFi Corp. have substantially cleaned up their act with regards to grey imports. I remember reading somewhere that they'd largely (or wholly - can't recall) ceased to source directly. Their website seems to corroborate this.

I still wouldn't buy any of the lesser brands, especially those exclusive to them, but I don't think the big brands are an issue any more.
 
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Elite Override said:
I'm hesitant to buy second hand since that battery would probably have to be replaced as well.

I do have a proper pc at home to do most coding on, what I meant was that I would probably just fix a few minor bugs on the notebook. I know VS2010 would be a pain, it's already a pain on my 2.8 dual core I use atm.

Let me explain the monetary situation:
I'm going to start studying this year. Thanks to my matric results the university is going to pay me R13 500 back on my first year of studies. But, my dad will be paying for my studies until I have finished my degree and then I have to start paying him back. I am going to ask him to give me around 3-4k of the money I saved with my results, to buy me a notebook to make my life slightly easier. I want to have most of those savings (the 13k) to go into my studies since I have to pay my dad back.
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Hmm... sounds like a good idea you've got going there.
Just one thing, so you're actually expecting to use the Notebook as a mobile machine with -decent- battery life?
 
enigma243 said:
Might be wrong here, but I do believe HiFi Corp. has substantially cleaned up their act with regards to grey imports. I remember reading somewhere that they'd largely (or wholly - can't recall) ceased to source directly. Their website seems to corroborate this.

I still wouldn't buy any of the lesser brands, especially those exclusive to them, but I don't think the big brands are an issue any more.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.

The problem is, I'm now confused whether I should buy at hifi corp or not?

Their special in the first post is really attractive to me atm.
 
I think only you can decide if you really need/want a 3K mobile PC.
From my own experience at Varsity if there's one thing I can remember it's that having a competent desktop PC in your room was the best option since a PC when studying tends to form the central hub of your existence (when you're not out partying or shagging..hehe).
I don't know what your experience would be like but if it was my choice I'd rather use the money to upgrade my Desktop rig as much as possible... there's nothing worse than being left out of all the cool media stuff like multiplayer games etc. when you're studying.
 
RaptorSA said:
I think only you can decide if you really need/want a 3K mobile PC.
From my own experience at Varsity if there's one thing I can remember it's that having a competent desktop PC in your room was the best option since a PC when studying tends to form the central hub of your existence (when you're not out partying or shagging..hehe).
I don't know what your experience would be like but if it was my choice I'd rather use the money to upgrade my Desktop rig as much as possible... there's nothing worse than being left out of all the cool media stuff like multiplayer games etc. when you're studying.
Click to expand...

I have a good desktop atm :)

I have negotiated a bit more with my dad, and we decided a high end netbook might be a better idea, you know, the ones with CD/DVD writer, 320Gb hdd and a duel core processor. Can anyone suggest something like that for around 7k?
 
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