I don't know much about Acer, but my buddy gave a good review of Asus when I was asking him about what kind of new laptop I should get.
I have a 4 year old Dell, it's starting to run like crap and just shut-down and freeze up all the time (it's swan song).
So I asked my computer literate buddy, he said he got an Asus laptop for 700, it has an upgraded video card, it's 13.3 inch screened, and has a long (11hr) battery life and he's had it a year or two.
I wanted to get a mac so that I wouldn't ever have to worry about viruses, but they are just too expensive for me.
It felt really light compared to my hunker of a dell, and the long battery life appeals to me because for work I travel on planes (and trains and automobiles) alot and may not be able to plug in.
So I'm actually gonna go with that Asus, you can get it for maybe 600 without the video card, and maybe 800 for upgraded attributes.