IME, acer, dell, hp, compaq, lenovo, toshiba, etc. (all the common names that usually come to a consumers mind) are all typically hit or miss. while IT folks were complaining years back about compaq computers the only problems i was having fixing compaq laptops were end-user related, not the fault of the company or pc itself. prices were rock bottom in comparison to other mfgr's so it was a steal and a safe bet, IMO.
a big reason for hit or miss IME is bloatware... mfgr's trying to alter the processes to fit their needs... for example, trying to solve all your problems, therefore constantly reporting to the web the state your pc is in (i had a huge problem that rendered several end-users dead in the water with this issue from dell pc's for a long while... dell bloatware is usually horrendous)... another example... extending battery life by constantly monitoring processes and rendering them silent... this is a common one... it looks good on the package when pc "a" has almost twice the battery life of pc "b" that boast the same stats at comparable prices. however, IME this form of control itself is hit or miss in most cases.
however... 2 names stand out like shining stars IME and from my knowledge. ASUS and MSI are industry leaders that build quality products that stand the test of time and have won more awards than any other manufacturers in recent history. asus is always my number one recommendation... especially for longevity and performance on a budget. i'll be more than happy to pay the extra $50 for the ASUS name every time....
one problem i find is a very common issue with budget pc's... they don't come with a re-install disk... then they add bloatware that eventually causes incompatibilities that render the pc useless if you install the wrong thing or wind up with a bug. not a bad issue since usually there's a backup partition... but when the backup partition fails, you're stuck with a $400-$700 (or more) square frisbee. the real problem is the end-user letting the problem get too deep to fix and thus this can usually be avoided... however most folks let it go til things are too far beyond repair. this is one major reason why most of the folks i know who have changed platforms were forced to. their pc's no longer worked, their hdd was corrupted, their pc wouldn't boot into windows to access their backup partition and we were forced to buy another copy of windows or find an alternative... so most of them are running ubuntu, now.
so, to recap i would suggest;
acer first
msi second
if you go with another brand make sure there's a re-install disk or that your system gives you the option to make your own (most of the compaq's i've set up have had me make the disks myself) not a single acer or toshiba i've set up have either had the disk or had an option to make one. they're all running linux instead of what they came with, now...
