The Vaio notebook bit the dust for a second time. Rather than spend more than it's worth to get it repaired again, I picked up an Acer Aspire 3680-2633
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as3680.htm which seems to be not quite a total piece of crap, if not exactly a work of art. It came with Vista, but the young man who sold it to me offered to install XP for free. I have some thought that it may not quite have the juice for Vista, though so far I like it ok.
What are people's experiences with Acer? Keep in mind that "Oh God Never buy any of their crap!" type responses are a few hours too late.:)