Acer Aspire 5051 AWXMI

Purchased in January 2007, so it's now 4 YEARS and 4 months old!

Running Windows XP, upgraded to 2Gb RAM in 2008, and a 250Gb disk in 2011 (to replace the meagre 60Gb originally installed when it threw up a few bad sectors). Upgrading was a doddle, all components easily accessed.

Before upgrading RAM, the machine could take up to 2 mins to power up. In the rather long time (for a laptop) I've owned it, it's never needed a re-installation of the OS.

Have only once needed to contact Acer support, they responded within 18 hours. OK, it was the wrong response, and in bad English, but hey.

Fan tends to come on full-speed when you ask it to do anything more complicated than word processing or watching DVDs, but it even handles video editing fairly well with the help of a cooling stand. Has been known to stay powered up while downloading batches of Gb-sized files over whole weekends, with no crashes, ever, after the RAM was upgraded.

Battery life was around 90minutes when new, but is now pretty much non-existent so it's relegated to desktop use only, but it makes a solid compact desktop machine.

The speakers are (unsurprisingly) tinny sounding). 3 USB ports easily expanded with an external hub or PCI card. Headphones and line in/out on the front panel, when the latter are better suited to the rear. Now an old laptop so there's no HDMI output, but the VGA output works well for connection to a TV.

Annoyingly, no Bluetooth despite having the button on the front! The WiFi connection is solid and reliable.

All in all, I paid £399 for this machine (complete with a full copy of Microsoft Office 2003), it's been well cared for and looked after, applications have been kept within its capabilities, it's still powered up for around 8 hours a day on average - do the maths. It's lasted incredibly well for a "budget" machine.

I won't be upgrading until it dies completely, and would definitely consider an Acer again.

Brilliant laptop workes well with vista and windows 7

A brilliant laptop. I can't fault it at all. I am still using it now!

The driver software for this notebook is hard to find online..Hope they can update their website too.

Exceptionally poor customer service. Acer Aspire 5051 AWXMI screen display broke after a few months of very gentle use.

I own around 10 laptops for my business of various makes and have used various makes of laptops over the years such as Hp, fujitsu, Asus, compaq, dell and going back to the IBM thinkpads many years ago and i have not had many problems with any of them. This is the first and LAST ACER, I have to say this is the poorest quality one i have ever had in the 10 or so years i have owned laptops it feels cheap, looks cheap and yes it was cheap lesson learned i will spend a few more quid next time. It developed a fault with the screen after only 4 months the screen developed lines down it, its hardly used this one because its quite slow.

Phoned ACER first question they asked was had i paid for extra warranty when i told them no they informed me it was down to it being dropped or something being put on top of it or i must have left a pen on the keyboard, which is not what happened the lines just appeared as someone was working on it and got worse.

They said i could send it back and they would charge me £41 to collect it and around £200 to repair it the thing only cost me £250.

If you want cheap and cheerful then this is the one. But when it fails beware of the warranty it is not worth anything and the customer service staff are extremely arrogant.

Out of all the laptops i have had and used ASUS are the best my current one A6000 i have had for nearly 2 years its traveled all over the world with me, had a problem with the keyboard recently, they came collected and i had it back within 5 days thats what you call service.