Baroque Tossit
- التعليق
This review is for the Acer A114-32-C1YA. 64gb of storage, 4gb of RAM, Windows S. Im a semi-retired I.T. tech, so this review comes from that standpoint. After booting the device and logging in (using a Microsoft account, not a local account) I upgraded Windows S to Windows Home. This is a free upgrade, but is not reversible. Windows S supports only apps available in the Windows Store; Windows 10 Home supports Office 365 and 3rd party software. Once Win 10 Home was installed (if you do this, be sure to reboot the system, just to let things stabilize); also Win 10 updates will want to install and the malware definitions of Windows Defender will want to install, so give it some time to do those chores before installing other apps. Before I installed more apps, I removed a BUNCH of apps from the original Win 10 install - the machine comes loaded with "Bloatware" from Microsoft. After the "Bloatware-ectomy and Windows updates I installed Office 365, Chrome browser, DIA (an open source diagramming application), four printer drivers, Splashtop (a remote access application), a "Caps Lock" indicator app, Dropbox and setting up MS Outlook, a couple of GB of data, and have 33 GB free. 8 GB is taken up by the backup of Windows ("Windows.old") and could be recovered by running disk clean / clean system files. I tested Windows Remote Desktop and SplashTop and was able to access remote Windows computers without issue. Setting up an old HP4050n printer took some time - the drivers had to be manually configured. Performance of the Acer with 4gb RAM and an N4000 processor is not earth shaking; it isnt a gaming machine. However, running Office apps or having 3-4 Chrome windows open doesnt seem to task the system. The keyboard is acceptable for the market price (YMMV since keyboards are subjective). Theres no "Caps Lock" indicator on the keyboard. However Ive installed a 3rd party freeware program that places an indicator on the screen when Caps Lock is on. (You can find the software by searching the web). Im finding the screen to be better than I expected for this price point - but again, thats subjective and YMMV. One irritation - "Cortana" wants to search the web, the local device, the planet, the outer planets, and extend the search to the Andromeda Galaxy for all I know. Theres a registry hack that kills ("murders" might be a better word) Cortana and limits searches to the local machine. If I need to search the web, I use Google (or some such); when Im looking for a file or an app, I want the Windows 10 Home search bar to limit the search to the local machine. Once the hack was in place, the search bar works nicely. You can search the web on how to disable Cortana. Be sure to save a backup copy of the Registry before attempting to edit it. Since Bitlocker isnt supplied with Win 10 Home (shame on Microsoft for that!!!) Ive added a BIOS / boot password so that once shut down the machine cant be fired up w/o the password. If you need more storage, a USB thumb drive can be installed (some of them are very small and dont extend out of the USB port by much). Online storage (DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.) is also an option (Ive disabled OneDrive on my machine). Theres an SD card reader, but the card sticks out too far for my taste to leave a card in the machine permanently for storage purposes. YMMV. (Edit 2/23/19): I added a 64 GB USB drive and moved my 2 GB of data onto that. I used another computer running Window 10 Pro to encrypt the drive using Bitlocker. Windows 10 Home can unlock Bitlocker drives. If the laptop is lost or stolen the BIOS password will protect the Acer from booting up and Bitlocker will protect the data. The machine is lightweight and would be good for making notes in class or meetings; my primary usage will be to maintain a Windows Server 2012r2 domain controller and network using remote desktop and Splashtop. Email and Office apps run well; Ive experienced no issues. Note that I normally have no more than 2-3 apps running at once; if youre in the habit of having 15 web pages open you may stress the machine more than I do. Dont expect to run online games or Adobe PhotoShop or other intensive apps on this machine. But for me - $250 for a serviceable laptop that can do what I need to do w/o fuss rates 5 stars. (There are other computers in the price range with better specs - but the Acer works for me. YMMV.) (Edit 2/23/2019) After a full battery charge I used the computer on a service call. The computer was in use (no videos, just Office, web searches, and remote accessing clients network machines) from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m.; it was placed into sleep mode until 3 p.m., then used from 3 p.m. until 5:15 p.m. when the "low battery" warning at 20% came on. A little over 7 hours run time, 5 hours sleep mode - not bad at all for the first real day of work. HTH Regards Jim