Acer Laptops - Any opinions?

[jb22]

So I'm looking for a laptop, it will be my first. My main concern is to get a pretty fast machine that can handle apps like Photoshop, After Effects, Maya and Coobustion.

I was initially looking at the Dell 9300, then the 9400 but a 17" laptop just seems a bit too big, although I don't need an unltra portable. So I was surfing around and the Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi caught my eye. It has all the specs I'm looking for and seems to get pretty good battery life (which should get better once the USB 2.0 bug is resolved).

So does any one have any feed back on Acer laptops in terms of build quality and support?

[pluto]

about as good as Dell IMO... can't compare to a Thinkpad in build quality, but definitely a step up from Toshiba