As per the previous poster Acer are getting a ghastly rep -- I was struck by a friend's Acer laptop just a few months old and showing bald patches where the metallic finish had worn away to black plastic underneath. Apparently a common experience.
However, there little doubt that Western brands will be submerged by Oriental ones -- IBM's laptops were made in the far east and are now called Lenovo (Chinese). The rise of Asus, Acer, MSI -- previously makers of laptops for other brands.
There's a logic to it -- why pay for an American brand with overpaid executives and Silicon Valley offices when all you're getting is the product of a sweatshop in China.
We've been here before with US and British hifi brands: Fisher and Marantz shifted production to Japan and soon were no longer US companies -- just labels on Sanyo (or in the case of Marantz, Philips) products. Wharfedale now just a brand name on Chinese stuff.