All of the consumer lines are pretty bad these days. Acer has a reputation for being unreliable (backed by some data from SquareTrade ~10 years ago). HP is just as bad, in mostly the same ways, but has avoided the reputation.
Reliable laptops are the enterprise lines - Dell Latitude/Precision, HP Elite Book, and Lenovo Thinkpad. But they are significantly more expensive when buying new.
Does anyone know the reasoning used for the exception? From the article, it was clearly a deliberate decision. But I do not see any reason why it was needed.