The Aspire One feels quite solid - a bit more solid, I think, than my Sony Vaio, which cost around $2000 some years ago.
The screen is quite bright and readable, and the keyboard is fine for my big fingers. At 1024x600 and 8.9 inches wide, the screen is a bit smaller than I'm used to, but I generally configure laptops with big fonts if I'm doing extended typing or editing, so it's not going to be a problem. It came with Windows XP, and I'm still getting Debian (not the toy Linux that Acer vends) in place. Read on for discussion of what I've discovered so far.
http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/article.php?story=20081127140713176