Acer laptops are solid? well maybe some will last around 2-3yrs for me most common problems for them is heating and keyboard malfunction
solid for me is is ibm or toshiba.
for the the poster well like i said heating is a main factor on acer as it goes on age
regarding with your question since you're only using it for mainly general purposes browsing/movies etc etc just buy the cheaper one
since you're only planning to use it for those purposes, but if you got the money why bother with bottledneck systems buy an i3 or i5 acers and also you will be using linux then better performance for the laptop
Edited by sanakaku - 6/24/10 at 10:17am