I tried to do this research years ago and my impression was that acer was near bottom of the barrel in reliability these days unfortunately.

That said, it also seems in general that laptop quality and reliability are a total crap shoot, even within the same company.

So your best bet imo is to just find a model that has the specs you like and research the hell out of it before buying.

I don’t mind having downloaded digital copies. I have a Plex server of stuff too. But sometimes it’s just easier to just buy a disk rather than find a safe/working torrent just to get it digitally

I am disappointed it feels like physical media is slowly going away though. It’s not only nice to have a physical collection in my opinion, but it directly supports the stuff you like, and you don’t have to deal with the bs that comes with digital “ownership” or the ever changing mess that are streaming services.

Oh cool, good to see the power button is still on the other side of the fucking menu. You know, the thing that I’m clicking on 90% of the time I’m opening the Start Menu? Why have that easily reachable like in past versions of Windows? Silly me I guess.

I feel like modern day mega stuffed is what double stuffed used to be. Normal oreos now only have just enough of a thin layer of cream to get away with not being sued for false advertising

Honestly not too familiar with that. I imagine if they’re touting this as a new thing, FRP either does something different or was lacking compared to this in some way.

Though it is Google, they could have just killed FRP in favor of this and added messaging features like they do with everything else

For what it’s worth, they’re trying to fix that with Android 15. Not sure if this is one of the features they’ll also be back porting to older phones too like this article briefly touches on, but either way it sounds like if you factory reset the phone, it can’t be set up again unless they know your login: https://www.wired.com/story/android-15-theft-detection-lock/

Google says in a blog post, the company is adding four data protection features that can help keep your information locked down. The first stops your phone from being set up after a factory reset, unless the person knows your login details. “This renders a stolen device unsellable, reducing incentives for phone theft,” Google vice president Suzanne Frey writes.

But you can literally buy a cheap android phone for less than this device that does everything it does (and might do some day), maybe even better. Why buy a strange and unfamiliar form factor, when most people are comfortable with a smartphone already? They can just choose not to interact with anything other than the assistant if they really want to, and still be better off.