Thanks for all the help! I have seen the ACER laptops and looked at the acer Aspire laptops before. The salesman at walmart told me(and believe me I know you ask enough you get millions of different opinions, and I have for sure! ) said the ACER was a off brand and he wouldn't recommend it to anyone but looking at it I noticed it was loaded with all the latest in everything such as the core processor etc, so I was impressed just leery. I had just heard more bad things today about the dells so those definitely are looking like they will be off my list now. Now it's coming down between a HP and definitely giving more thought to the Acer. Battery life is important to me because I want to be mobile with it when I can, plus I hate to spend a lot of money on a laptop that today is great and tomorrow is yesterday's news and the salesman that sold it to me already knew that and I think a lot of them that are on sale today in the stores are like that and I'm not saavy enough to know which ones are and which ones aren't yet so that's why I'm asking as many questions as I can before I buy so keep the advice coming for sure! thanks again and I will check that ACER out again today. What model do you currently have? ELICIA