I bought a top spec acer aspire notebook about 16 months ago (rrp-£1200) they dont sell it anymore. It started shutting down randomly after 10/11 months and went in for repair - new CPU and motherboard....so they said.

Got it back after a couple of weeks and all seemed fine, but 3 to 4 months later exactly the same was happening. I called and the repair warranty had run out 2 weeks previously and they would not budge, despite agreeing their first repair did not work. They would not assist in any way and could not give a price for repair - only 'it will be expensive'.

Now if thats not enough heres the punchline - an indepenant local IT shop checked it over and the motherboard nor CPU had been changed in his opinion. They obvioulsy did something as it did work fine for a short while, but it all seems rather strange and convenient for acer.

Whether the independant guy is right who knows, but either way I think a warning is due.