Sorry for the bump, but I have to ask, how did it work out? Did it at all? Acer seemed so appealing to me before I read this thread and saw that you and Punkychan had the same problem.
I'm asking because I'll be moving overseas in a few months - to a very remote area, and in addition, I'll be spending most of my time on a seagoing vessel that'll be out to sea for months, and I need a reliable desktop replacement capable of running Adobe Premiere and CS2 quickly. I'll be gone for a while so I'll also want to play a few games every so often. My budget is anything under 2,500 USD.
I was thinking about the Travelmate 8200. 2.0GHz, 15.4, 2GB DDR2 533, a 120GB drive as well as a DVD burner sounds very nice. The ATI X1600 doesn't seem terrible either, although from experience I'd prefer nVidia.
Thoughts or ideas anyone? Maybe this deserves a new thread, hm. Anyway, Thanks!