Selecting laptop is a nightmare simply because of the sheer variety of machines with similar spec,as I can testify when with my daughter in John Lewis earlier this year.

She went round and round that display, to make a selection- I stepped back to look at TV's in the end sure in the knowledge that spec for spec the buyers choice comes down too colour of the lid and the name plate -the rest comes down to processor Intel/AMD all else coming from generic suppliers supplying all assemblers and badge stickers Thats does not help make a choice- so if you are used the the quirks of Acer- that should be your focus. But yes John Lewis is the place to go

I guess no quirks specific to Acer in particular

In reality all computers are 'dumb'

The 'quirks come in with the operating system and the applications deployed. '

I leave others to comment on Acer, and stick to my original Toshiba reccomensation. The issue re RAM is dependant on how many and how complicated the programmes you run are. I have 4 Gig and use Photoshop CS5 - runs fine. Some ardent gamers would like as much as possible.Foe a "normal" user I think 4 is about right for 64 bit Windows 7.