Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi- Keep or Return for a Merom Laptop

Posted this in the Merom board but only got 1 response so far. Please give advice. Need to know by end of 9 pm tonight.

I have purchased an Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi notebook computer about three weeks ago now, but have not opened the box, . I am not sure whether to return it and get a Core 2 Duo Merom equipped laptop or stick with it. There is no restocking fee for returning since I have not opened the box yet, but I do need to return it by tonight if I want a refund. As you know the Core 2 Duo is supposedly a superior chip, but I only paid $940 (which includes tax) for this Acer laptop. I believe this is a good price in today's market for a laptop with:

Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2300 (2MB L2 cache, 1.66GHz, 667MHz FSB); 2GB (1/1) DDR2 533 SDRAM; 120GB SATA hard drive, 5400RPM; integrated Super-Multi drive (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM); 5-in-1 card reader; 15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) TFT display, Acer® CrystalBrite Technology ; ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 graphics, 128MB DDR; 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Bluetooth™, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem; Acer® OrbiCam camera

If the new Core 2 Duo chip is the same price perhaps I should return the Acer I purchased and wait for the new Core 2 Duo chip. My only hesitation with this is that I will probably not be able to get a Core 2 Duo for $940 with similar specs. Assuming that the Core 2 Duo chip is the same price as the Core Duo chip I am guessing that it will still be difficult to find a similarly priced laptop with the Core 2 Duo chip and the same specs, since component prices other than the CPU may not change too much.

I do a fair amount of multimedia encoding and according to most reports the Core 2 Duo chip is significantly better than the Core Duo at these types of tasks. Perhaps I should just keep the laptop and upgrade to the Merom chip later in the year? However, I don't know whether the Acer motherboard would allow this. I don't know what to do. What do you think? What would you do? Any advice, guidance and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Gene

 

Keep it and enjoy your Acer. You can always upgrade later. No Core 2 Duo will come out in the next month that has the same price and specs as your new laptop.

 

You can just upgrade to new CPU (is compatible) and sell the old (cpu) one.

Gradius

 

Thanks admlam for your input. That is what I am leaning towards. Unfortunately, when I emailed Acer regarding a possible CPU upgrade to the Core 2 Duo they reponded that it would not be upgradeable. Perhaps it is something proprietary in their systems or perhaps, and most likely, this Acer tech guy has no idea what he is talking about. In any case, if I cannot upgrade to Core 2 Duo later it would make it tough for me to use the 64 bit version of Vista down the road.

 

He have no idea. I'll put a T7400 on mine.

Gradius