+1 for dell Inspiron, I specced one up for a reletive of mine recently, worked out to ~900 including buying a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD from PCCasegear and the Inspiron off the Dell website. If you can't afford an SSD still, then at least get the 7200rpm disk. (I incidentally find it HILARIOUS that even the newest Macbook Pros, which are a large part of Apple's market, have 5400rpm drives when they cost between 1400 and 3k [with extended warranty etc])
jonboy: Even the cheaper Dell laptops / netbooks I've encountered have been comparatively well made, IMO; ACER are known for making cheap computers - it's unlikely that someone is going to buy a higher end one over say a Sony for argument's sake.
BTW, under our site licencing agreement, our staff members can purchase a legit copy of office for $35, but it comes in the same packaging and disc type as the volume licence versions, so could be worth hitting up your IT dept if you work for a large enterprise