Ah interesting.
Is the Macbook air ( and other Macbooks) cast? I would have assumed it’s full CNC.
With their roundabout 30000 machines that would make sense.
We looked into casting but it has serious anodization challenges.
Finding myself in the tail end of a project that involves stamping a large part as well, I can attest to the cosmetic and ME challenges.
Also that there still is a good amount of CNC necessary to clean up and straighten out the part.
I haven’t looked at the Acer in person yet but from the hi-res images i can find online, I actually think it doesn’t look too bad.
The light anodization helps hide the stress lines put into the part through this aggressive process.
If this were anodized dark, I bet there would be an insane amount of defects visible.
At some point you gotta ask, is it worth manufacturing metal housing if you can’t achieve a quality standard set by Apple?
I would argue that there is a place for stamping, extrusion and other processes besides full CNC but you get into hot water when you are literally mimicking a product that is produced with “whatever the cost” kind of mentality and comparisons are inevitable.