Acer Aspire 5742 vs 5750?

I'm looking to get a new laptop after my 6 year old Toshiba died. My sister said she had an Acer once that she loved, so I looked into them. I found these two:
Acer AS5742-6818
Acer AS5750-6636.

I know the second one has a second gen i3 and a better card reader...the first one has a higher ghz on the processor. Once I get the extended warranty though, the second one is about $70 more. I guess I have a few questions. What's the longevity on an Acer? After my last one lasted 6 years, I'm looking for something that'll go that long or longer. Also, is the 2nd gen worth it? Or should I save the money and get the first laptop listed?
Any opinions or info would be greatly appreciated as I've been out of the tech game for so long Thanks!

 

Performance will be similar, but the 2nd gen i3 should get better battery life. One advantage of older tech is it's had time for all the little production issues to get worked out, and cheap spare parts are plentiful, so if you crack the screen or case you can fix it yourself pretty easily. Plus if you do have a problem, it's unlikely you're the first guy to have that problem.

 

I also looked over at tigerdirect and found an older refurb for about $50 less than the other ones which were both new...their warranties are more though, so it would equal about the same as the 6814:
AS5742-7120

 

5742 models have mono speakers, if that matters to you.

 

u just beat me to it .... I listened to one of these and the sound is disgusting I dunno what were they thinking when they put 1 speaker in that machine

 

I have an acer with a mono speaker, (not the models mentioned), and it is horrible, definitely the worst sounding machine I've ever had. Just terrible.

In answer to the question about longevity, as with all products bought, it would depend on how the machine was used, if it is to be carried around, and travelled well, it's life may be considerably shorted than if it never left your house. All depends on how it's used, but Acer's, from reading a lot of threads and posts here, are a lot better build wise than they used to be, and a lot of people have a lot of good experiences with them.

 

The 5750 visually still has the one long speaker at the top of the keyboard, but the description does say it has two stereo speakers.

Thanks for the responses about sound! I use my computer for music a lot and sometimes to watch some hulu, so sound is definitely a factor for me. Has anyone had any experience with the sound on a 5750? Or any stereo Acer?

As far as usage, I just got done with college... finally, so dragging it around is probably in the past. I might drag it around the house, or to a friends, but it's going to spend a lot of its time on my desk.

 

It has two speakers, one just above F4 and F5 buttons and the other above Pause button but you need to look hard, look for darker shades on that long strip. Sound system in this model is quite adequate and it's not bad at all.

 

ellalan: based on the specs in your sig, you may have the one I'm looking at, or at least one similar. How do you like it? I've seen Acers in stores and I'm not overly impressed by the keyboards or the build, I'm afraid it may be a bit flimsy.

I'm comparing the 5750 model to this HP G62X-400

 

Hi farm3rbob,
Yes, I have the same speced laptop, I'm more than pleased with it except for it's Elantech touchpad which is not as good as Synaptics. It works out of the box as I've expected and haven't made any changes to see how far it will go before I feel the system lagging.