Is the Acer AS5738Z-4111 15.6-Inch Blue Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) a good computer?

Not too bad, but without a dedicated graphics card, it's a piece of crap, that HDMI port will never send anything worthwhile over it. You need a dedicated graphics card to do just about anything that isn't web-browsing or simple Office programs. If you plan to watch movies or play games, you will need to get a laptop that has a Radeon or NVIDIA graphics card in it.