have International Keyboard, would prefer US Keyboard

[brycej]

I spoke with a nice guy at Acer Canada Technical support and he said that to the best of his knowledge all Acer Aspire Ones shipped to Canada have the International keyboard. He had no opinion as to why this was done. He agreed that buying one in the US would be a good alternative.

 

[jeromlenz]

I'm fairly certain that there is no technical reason why you can't swap one of these for a US keyboard.

I know one good reason: if you start telling on the forum you had your keyboard replaced, they'll have to replace all Canadian keyboards!!? :lol:
So they messed a bit with this kb layout and now it's too late to go back...
(Maybe next shipment to Canada won't include this international keyboard anymore?)
Typical discussion about early adopters used as "experimenting ground" for first revision products. Are we Guinea pigs!? :roll:
But I agree they could get our support good "word of mouth" quite easily with few commercial efforts towards "power-users"/evangelists!

 

[skateasian]

It's so cuuuuute! I love the green. hehe. if the left shift were bigger I'd totally trade you my keyboard.

 

[brycej]

I contacted TigerDirect.ca as they have pictures of the Aspire One with the US keyboard. They replied that the pictures are just copied from their US site and that they will be shipping International keyboard only.

 

[Strawberry Field]

I had referred Acer guys to this POST and they replied;

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I guess I still haven't made our standpoint clear. The unit you purchased came with an international keyboard. We cannot replace that keyboard with a US keyboard since that is not what shipped on your unit. There are units that come with a US keyboard. If one of those customers wanted an international keyboard, we could not replace their US keyboard with an international keyboard. The link you provided is from a user who apparently purchased this keyboard from somewhere else. It did not come from Acer. There are two reasons I know it didn't come from Acer. First reason, we do not view the keyboard as a user replaceable part therefore that part would not be sold to a customer whose computer was still under warranty. Second reason, as I stated above, the original keyboard was not a US
keyboard therefore we would not have sold them a part that is not what was originally installed. The customer in that forum most likely purchased the part from somewhere else and replaced it themselves. You are free to do this if you wish but please be aware, if any accidental damage is caused the warranty will not cover it. If for any reason the unit has to come in for repair, there is a very real possibility the technicians will see that non OEM keyboard and replace it with the original international keyboard.

If you would still like to discuss this matter further, you will need to call in and speak to technical support. You may contact Acer Technical Support at 1-800-816-2237 Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CST and Sat-Sun 8am-5pm CST excluding holidays. Currently we are experiencing high call volume, so please expect your hold time to be longer than normal. It will help to expedite your call if you have the following information available in front of you when you call in: Your contact information, physical shipping address (no PO boxes are accepted), your Acer product.

Respectfully,
Acer America
Online Technical Support
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


I totally understand what they are saying and their circumstance, but it is too shame No3. Computer Sales Company in America didn't even try to provide any option the customer could choose at all. Oh well.I don't really want to watse my time with that unreliable custoemr service any more, so I decided to go with Sharp Key http://www.randyrants.com/2006/07/sharpkeys_211.html to re-assign the stupid slash key between left shift and Z to Left shift.

It is quite simple registry hacking and no memory allocated program left on my system.

 

[osdude]

strawberry, what color is AA1? If it's blue, we might need to talk

 

[brentashley]

There are units that come with a US keyboard. If one of those customers wanted an international keyboard, we could not replace their US keyboard with an international keyboard.

Replace "we could not" with "we are not willing to". Of course you COULD, you ridiculous pillocks, you are simply unwilling to do what is obviously a simple thing to do if you actually care to satisfy the will of your customers. Go ahead and charge me a million fucking dollars for the convenience of doing it, but don't tell me it's goddam impossible to do, because you're lying. Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. It would simply require an exception to your internal process. Is Acer not an ISO 900x company? Does exception management not exist?

I can live with it as it is, I could replace it if a replacement were available, I don't care if it would affect the warranty.

The link you provided is from a user who apparently purchased this keyboard from somewhere else. It did not come from Acer. There are two reasons I know it didn't come from Acer. First reason, we do not view the keyboard as a user replaceable part therefore that part would not be sold to a customer whose computer wwilas still under warranty. Second reason, as I stated above, the original keyboard was not a US keyboard therefore we would not have sold them a part that is not what was originally installed. The customer in that forum most likely purchased the part from somewhere else and replaced it themselves.

Of course it came from Acer - what, you think I've got nothing better to do than to make up a story how I got a stupid crappy keyboard layout by somehow finding an ersatz replacement within the first month of a product's lifecycle hoping that I can fool you into thinking you need to give me another keyboard? I bought my machine from a reputable Canadian Acer dealer. It came with this stupid neither-chalk-nor-cheese keyboard. Don't you tell me it didn't come from you, you officious twat. You don't have the information available to you to come to that conclusion. By jumping to your bogus conclusion you are confirming your lack of credibility.

You have two choices. #1 is to admit that this response was ill-considered, #2 to continue to be boneheaded and tell us we're all fucking idiots for not being able to comprehend the inflexibility of your policy and not only lose our custom but to earn our lasting disdain and derision.

Honestly, Acer, you're digging a deep hole. I got a keyboard that I preferred not to get. I stated my case. By insisting that I didn't and that I must have replaced it myself, you're opening yourselves up to a monumental amount of ridicule.

 

[Wolfgang]

It's not as though it's even french (AZERTY) Must be some assumption that all Canadians are bilingual. I can't tell you the last time I wished I had an international keyboard. Gimme one or the other, not something that's neither.

I guess the distribution department thinks everyone in Canada is a Pepsi-drinking lumberjack eating poutine and reeling to Celine Dion and Roch Voisine when they're not listening to Stompin Tom and working on square-headed Bay Street. Perhaps they've seen Bon Cop Bad Cop and figure we all speak Franglais all the time.

Ridiculous stereotypes apparently extend beyond culture into technology...

... or maybe I should just chill out

You mean to tell me Canadians aren't like that :shock:

 

[brycej]

Here is what Acer Canada sales has to say about the keyboard. If the first photo in this post is correct, and I assume that it is, they have a problem counting as that keyboard has 85 keys. I will check out what Staples has on display but if it is that keyboard I will not be choosing Acer in Canada...maybe the US.

Hello,

The Aspire One models sold in Canada come with a bilingual (EN/FR) 84 key keyboard.

One of our retailers - Staples should now have this product on display for you to view before purchasing.


Thank you for choosing Acer

Canada-Sales

 

[ineedaname]

Bleh I too wish that my A1 had a US keyboard instead of international.

Although I am starting 2 get used 2 it a bit. The most annoying part is the very small left shift key as that's the one i use most. I keep typing "\" instead of shift.

I hardly look @ my keyboard but when I do there's all this green crap everywhere that I'm never going to use. I wish they did more research b4 selling international keyboards outside of Quebec.

 

[IslandBookworm]

I sometimes type in Spanish and French so I'm looking forward to the international keyboard. My desktop keyboard is already mapped multilingual but I might have to get an international keyboard for it so I don't get confused switching back and forth. That mu key will be very handy for biologists and other scientists.

 

[sterckx]

Is there no way to pull the keys out and swap them around like on a desktop keyboard?
I've gotten a QWERTY-keyboard, while I'm used to typing on an AZERTY-keyboard and I don't want to force anything if I don't know it'll work

 

[brentashley]

Yayyy - a Canadian store that sells Aspire One parts, including US keyboards!

http://sourceitstore.com/notebooks/acer ... ck-us.html