Ash, I disagree--with the core duo vs. turion issue. Are we talking regular turion, or turion X2 (dual core, released earlier this year vs. the older core duo which is being replaced by the core 2 duo)? The core duo is neither more advanced, nor is it faster, nor is it more power-efficient than the turion X2. While the clock speeds are the same (~1.6 GHz), AMD processors can complete more in one clock cycle than an intel counterpart, so are therefore faster. I have a turion x2 dual core notebook, 1.6 GHz--I perform calculations on it using Matlab, and it far exceeds a core duo 1.6 GHz mobile processor that one of my colleagues has in nearly every cpu-intensive benchmark (though I'll always give it to Intel for audio encoding). Now, I'll agree, if we're talking single-core turion vs. intel core duo (not core 2 duo), and the object is multitasking, then yes, I'd go dual core over single even if it's intel over amd. However, single core turions clock speeds are much higher than core duo clock speeds of similar price range, so if you don't much care about mulitasking, then I'd go single core for the faster, more efficient, and cheaper processor. The 1.6 GHz turion x2 has a power-consumption rating of 25 watts while the 1.6 GHz core duo consumes 31 watts.

Also, I'm a bit apprehensive to believe that a core duo 1.6 GHz mobile processor is "faster" than a desktop P4 2.8 GHz single-core system. Maybe to mean to say that the dual core notebook runs smoother (obviously due to the better multitasking capabilities), and translate that into "faster," but given that a scarce few number of programs are multithreaded, cpu benchmarks would reveal that the 1.6 GHz core duo is not nearly as fast as a P4 2.8 GHz. Not a chance.

Seems to me, Elicia, from what you mentioned you'd use the notebook for, you might as well go single core and save your money if there's a big price difference between the single- and dual-core notebooks you've looked at because you didn't describe anything that's either cpu-intensive, or requiring multitasking capabilities. Likely you won't REALLY notice much of a difference given what you describe you'll be doing, and might as well go with single core. However, to contradict myself slightly, I have been spoiled by dual core systems, and can't honestly say I'd go back to single core, but I tend to do a lot of audio and video encoding, and lots of multitasking. Good luck. Acer is a fine brand--the components are of good quality, and I would not waste any money on a better-known name brand.