Yes I knew Acer had some problems in the past, but they have been pretty decent in the last couple years... Personally for laptops I wouldn't settle for anything less then toshiba or IBM... They make the best laptops by far... They don't usually make budget laptops though...

I have a good toshiba satellite that I bought almost 3 years ago. It came with a 5 year warranty and has been running as good as new since the day I bought it. It was way ahead of it's time as well. Intel P4 2.4 ghz, 512mb ram (soon I'll upgrade to 1 gig), dvd/cd burner, it's own 32mb nvidia graphics card (by this I mean it's not onboard)... I mean this setup beats or matches most new laptops today...