Acer Aspire E5-551

I had to take apart an Acer Aspire E5-551 to exchange the hard disk for a SSD. What a mess.

First, you have to remove more than a fair share of phillips screws, and remove the DVD drive or the dummy cover. Next, you must pry open the ventral side containing the keyboard and touchpad using a flathead screwdriver. Detach the three flat cables connecting the ventral side to the dorsal side.

I’m not a fan of child labour, but I wish I had the hands of a child when I reassembled this engineering disaster of a laptop.

Acer’s engineers should consider a longer flat cable for the keyboard. And while they’re at it, they should add some lids on the dorsal side for easy access to memory and storage devices. The latter will require a redesign of the motherboard.

I failed on the first attempt to correctly attach the keyboard flat cable, resulting in dead keys for A, Tab, and ESC. The second attempt was successful.

No, Acer is not a brand I would consider. Not with this lack of ease of service.