Acer's shocking website(s)

Is it just me, or does anyone else find that trying to locate drivers, manuals, software etc on Acer's various sites is a nightmare? I'm used to being able to download those sorts of files freely before I buy something so I can read the manual and decide whether or not it does what I want (I'm hardly going to get precise answer to specific technical questions by asking someone in a shop or emailing an Amazon reseller).

To look at Acer's sites you'd think the Aspire one didn't exist.

http://www.acer.com/aspireone/
I hate flash sites! I've clicked on 'drivers and support' - uh...where are they? Files, I guess... "Updates coming soon." Updates to what? Where are the files? I get the same answer for the other three links there.

Ok, I'll try:
http://www.acer.com/public/home.jsp
Handhelds? NOpe, not there. Notebooks? Ah - there's the "Aspire series". I'll just click on "aspire one"..ah, no I won't - it's not there.

I'll use the search provided by that site then. It's timing out. Perhaps I'll try again later. I'll google again. For now I'll click on "Europe, Middle East & Africe (sic)". It takes me to a list of countries, including the uk, which is here:

http://www.acer.co.uk
"Want one?" Yes, I'll click there. Enable pop-ups on my browser- ah - it's that Flash crap again.

Back to :
http://www.acer.co.uk

Click on `netbooks`. Some pictures which don't load properly (i've tried 3 browsers).

"Acer recommends Windows® for everyday computing."

Why? It's crap, and most of your Aspire One's run Linux, anyway! I'll click on 'service and support':

For driver/utility downloads, please visit our European site:
http://support.acer-euro.com

Ok, I'll do that:

I've clicked on 'userguides' but now i'm taken to a page with all sorts of `guides` and `manuals` and `documents` - none of which leads me to anything related to an Aspire one manual or file.

Just to compare, let's try and get the manual for the Asus EEE pc 900. Google for "Asus eee pc" gives me this:

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/

Download? No, that's the source code. Nice, but not what I'm after at the mo. Support? Some help, but not files. Service?

Ah - takes me to:

http://support.asus.com/default.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

DOWNLOAD
Download product BIOS, Drivers , User Manuals and Utilities here.

Sounds good to me - and there they are. After choosing the range, model and OS I can download anything I want. 4 bioses, with a description of what's in them. The manuals, the source code, drivers etc.

It's not rocket science.

I still want an Aspire One, but I'm probably going to get one from John Lewis with a 2 year warranty so I don't have to deal with these clowns if anything goes wrong.

 

newbe

 

Huuh...I had absolutely no problems with finding and downloading the drivers for Windows from the Acer website... >_> Bad day? Bad karma?

 

It might be instructive to explain why it was so much easier with Asus than with Acer? Which search terms did you use?

 

First of all drivers are here: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/category/drivers/

Uncle Google says: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... arch&meta=

There is a lot of sources... Where is this "nightmare"??

 

My "nightmare" is trying to find Linux drivers for the right-hand card slot that I can compile for (or just run with) standard Fedora or Ubuntu kernel-2.6.27. Worse yet, this nightmare is ongoing even though it's 7:30 am and the sun is out.

 

I see now. Sorry - misunderstanding.

TBH I've installed Mandriva 2008.1 and all stuff working out of the box. Both card readers are fine - they just works as standard card readers and after putting SD card into any I've got an access to the card from TRAY area. I'm not quite sure you can find separate drivers for this particular card reader...

 

I would also recommend Mandriva 2008.1 if you want to use Linux as it works out of the box for AAO. You can install it into the SSD or an external usb stick or hdd.

 

I should have been clearer. Both SD card slots work fine with the stock kernels. I even found the source code for a full set of drivers for the JMicron reader. The code all compiles (after a couple of what I hope were harmless tweaks), but the xD-card modules don't actually work with the 2.6.27-0.337.rc6.git5.fc10.i686 kernel I'm currently using. Guess I'll hang on to my USB xD card reader a bit longer.

 

Ha? I don't understand...Asus? Acer website was fine, I didn't touch the Asus website...

 

folks, just because we are used to googling for drivers doesn't get Acer off the hook for doing a lousy job supporting the aa1. Heck this laptop is meant for school kids and low-fi users who don't need too much fire power, unlike most of the folks posting on the forum.

Poldie is right, Acer needs to clean up their act and get a decent support website up and running. Why do I have to scroll through a million aspire models to locate aspire one? shouldn't "netbook" be a category on its own?

I was backing up my aa1 XP install with True Image and noticed the recovery partition is actually named "..compaq". that's really shoddy, even if they are building the HP mini note or whatever....well, its better than Asus shipping pirated software on CDs, but not by that much.
</rant>

 

i do find acers webpage a pain and terribly frustrating when trying to navigate for pretty much anything.

 

Have to agree - it's impossible even to find the PDF manual!