I'm looking at buying my wife an acer aspire 4520 for Christmas, this will only be used for home use and not for business. It comes with xp and is really cheap only 23,000 Baht. I would like to know if there is a problem with having xp or would it be better going elsewhere and having one fitted with vista home (whatever) installed instead?

I bought myself a Acer Aspire 4520G a few months ago and I'm really enjoying it. Mine came with Vista Home Premium which I didn't really enjoy, so I formatted and installed Windows XP MCE and Ubuntu, and now it flies. I can play most games (I'm a Battlefield 2142 addict).

You won't be sorry with Acer, their support is great.

XP is fine…. My partner bought the new Acer 6 weeks ago with Vista home but it would not run some work programs so had to install XP anyway.

You can download the Vista Transformation Pack for XP FREE, my old Sony laptop with XP and my new PC, as well as my partner Laptop have different version of Visa style transformation packs installed

Got one of the old Aspires (1640) - not through choice - and it's a chunk of sh1t

Hope yours is better.

One issue with XP is driver support. I had to search high and low to find the right drivers for my 4520G.

Also, if you run XP Pro or Home, then some of the quick shortcut keys will not work. They are media keys for Media Center on XP MCE or Vista Home Premium.

Jackr, the old Acers were crap. But the new ones rock. Fast, cheap, stylish, great support and free insurance.

One issue with XP is driver support. I had to search high and low to find the right drivers for my 4520G.

Also, if you run XP Pro or Home, then some of the quick shortcut keys will not work. They are media keys for Media Center on XP MCE or Vista Home Premium.

Jackr, the old Acers were crap. But the new ones rock. Fast, cheap, stylish, great support and free insurance.

My impression as well - they've really improved the hardware quality with the new designs. And they are still as cheap as they were. Excellent.

How hard was it to find the XP drivers? Isn't there some Acer website to download them?

Asking b/c a friend got an Acer laptop in the same price range - not sure if it's the same model - and it's just unbelievably slow with Vista. It's really sad - brand new computer and slow as if it was 5 years old. I wonder if I can recommend him to downgrade, he's non-technical so I would probably end up doing it...

You can get the drivers from the Taiwanese Acer site. The site is in Chinese, but the drivers are English.

Try and get the model number from your friend and I could help you look. If it is the same as mine, then I have the drivers backed up on CD.

thanks for the info guys, really appreciate it!! I think I will go for the XP version as I know how that works and will just download the drivers if necessary.

cheers

One issue with XP is driver support. I had to search high and low to find the right drivers for my 4520G.

Also, if you run XP Pro or Home, then some of the quick shortcut keys will not work. They are media keys for Media Center on XP MCE or Vista Home Premium.

Jackr, the old Acers were crap. But the new ones rock. Fast, cheap, stylish, great support and free insurance.

Yeah, so they say. Will probably get one to be fair when this one dies again