I bought what I thought was going to be a temporary replacement laptop for the IBM I got stolen, an Acer 5742, and I must say I'm impressed. 2.5 Ghz i3 processor, 4 GB memory and a 500 GB hard drive all for well under $500, it might not be a "temporary" replacement after all. Granted its nothing to write home about but it has Win7-64 preinstalled and though it seems to lag behind the IBM (that might be my imagination) it clips along pretty good.
Sounds like a nice enough toy, I am fascinated at how the price has dropped on this stuff, it was not that long ago that a reasonable laptop cost you 3 to 4 grand.