John. With the newer Haswell chip that is a very nice laptop and should get very good battery life. I proposed a similar Acer to my daughter, but she opted for lighter and smaller. As a student, she carries it around everywhere.
Joe, I must be getting a little soft in the head from all this shift work. Didn't even think about looking at doing the replacement myself.
I have found one other alternative, the HP Envey NV4-1117: better CPU and display, but lower battery life and apparently a somewhat funky touchpad (minor to major issue depending on the reviewer).
