Please assess this notebook

[zenrunner92]

http/www.walmart.com/ip/Bonus-50-eGift-Card-w-Purchase-of-HP-Charcoal-Gray-17.3-g7-1329wm-Laptop-PC-w-Quad-Core-A6-3420M-Accelerated-Processor-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium/20576401?wmlspartner=NKa3hZyYoHA&sourceid=28470373461163025342&veh=aff

A6 quad core, 4GB of RAM (will upgrade to 8GB), 500GB HDD (will upgrade to SSD)

Will this be adequate for my needs? They are:

- zero gaming
- multi-tasking is the most CPU-intensive thing I do on a regular basis (40-60 Chrome tabs open while playing music, with Excel and Word and Foxit Reader open)
- multimedia
- occasional basic photo editing
- occasional ripping of DVDs and CDs
- zero video editing
- basically, an Internet and MS Office user

Is this is a good price for what I'm getting?

Stability/reliability is my main goal.

Current laptop: Asus ULV-50T with U7300 processor, 4GB, SSD helped but still a bit slow sometimes

Will this quadcore provide a significant improvement in everyday use?
Or should I wait for the Ivy Bridge laptops to come out in the fall?

Was told that more cores = better for multitasking. True or false?

Thanks for your feedback...

 

[Confuzzled77]

If you aren't doing any gaming, I see no reason to go with AMD chips. I believe the consensus is AMD chips now are only best for gaming on a budget.

Here's one for roughly the same price...

http/www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+15.6%26%2334%3B+Satellite+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Matrix+Graphite/5031031.p?id=1218600485177&skuId=5031031

I checked the PassMark scores (not sure if it does multi-threading, or even how reliable people think they are, but...) the i3-2350m scored 28% better than the a4.