DO NOT BUY an Acer laptop

The saga of my suddenly-defunct Acer Aspire continues. Thing is, it's not the fact that it broke. It's the way it broke, and the fact that I now continue to find things broken about it. Anyone who's considering buying an Acer laptop should look at the following pictures and take heed. Consider the fact that this laptop was approximately 18 months old - not brand new, but not on its last legs either.

First, there's this:

If it's not immediately obvious what the problem is here, there is supposed to be a pin sticking out from that hole. (I realize that's kind of a crude way to put it.) It's no longer there. It's rattling around inside the case somewhere. That's the power connector, meaning I have no power. Acer designed the connector in such a way that the weak side of the power connection was on the laptop. Contrast that with what Lenovo does:

Opposite. The pin is on the cord. If anything's going to fail, it's going to be on a part that costs $50 to replace.

If you think this was somehow my fault, consider that it happened when I was pulling the connector out, not trying to force it in.

Now, not only did my power connector fail. At approximately the same time, because I never noticed it before, this happened:

My lid cracked at the hinge.

What a piece of junk.

I don't abuse my stuff either. This thing led 95% of its life sitting on a coffee table plugged in to power. Only a few times have I taken it on trips, but it's not like I use it to bring daily to and from work or anything. This thing took less abuse than my desktop does, which is older, has been banged around repeatedly and still works fine. No doubt if I actually treated this Acer as a laptop, I'd have gotten less than a year out of it.

Yes, kids, build quality does matter.