Acer Aspire One Question (laptops, hard drive, sound, work)

[taurus430]

I'm thinking of getting the Acer Diamond Black 11.6" Aspire One 722-BZ197 Laptop. I have it down to Walmart and Costco. They seem like the same item with Costco charging $41. more which gets you 90 day return, xtra year waranty and a little more GB HDD. Walmart is 250GB HDD and I think Costco's is 300+ GB HDD. I'm not sure if it's worth $41 more plus Walmart gives you 6 mo to pay. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[GregL]

i would go with the Costco one it seems you are getting more for your buck if it has more memory and a 90 day return, also that extra year warranty will come in hand if in that year it goes wrong

[taurus430]

Thanks for the help!!

[Tek_Freek]

I apologize. I did not see this thread for some reason. Even though I'm late I will agree with GregL.

[StoreDailyMart]

Acer is a good brand. You can choose Costco. I am agree with Gregl.

[Hemlock140]

I'm on one now that I got from Costco and have generally been very happy with it. The sound is a little weak. Actually very weak. You need to use earphones if you are watching a movie unless in a very quiet room. Hopefully later models have been improved, but you might try it on one in the store.

[mensaguy]

Taurus, did you buy one? I've got 2 Acer Aspire One netbooks and my daughter has an Acer laptop. No troubles in the 2 years we've had them.

[atlantagreg30127]

For others' reference, I'll add something I found about this series of Acers:

I got one for a nephew in college, and was setting it up for him, and noticed a clicking and whirring noise coming from the hard drive area in front. Had not noticed it from other laptops I've used in the past. A call to Acer (India) "support" told me it was defective and to ship it in - I instead traded it in for another one that did the exact same thing. Acer once again said it was defective and to ship it in. It went back, too.

What I later found up from a friend who works on computers: The laptop puts the hard drives into an overly-funky battery save mode when you are using the laptop on battery power. The hard drive will rev up and down and "park" the arm and unlock it repeatedly causing a clicking sound that in quieter environments will drive you nuts. It's not necessarily a defect, but it's irritating. Apparently this is becoming more common in the cheaper range of laptops but not all, and the friend said the western digital hard drives are more noisy than others (you can check what's in the system using control panel to check the hardware in the store). I would suggest to anyone going to Costco route due to their liberal return policy - test the computer out with A/C and battery power and listen carefully for any quirks.