Dell is now offering their Inspiron E1405 with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile (Merom) processor at their store. According to Dell, their E1405 is currently the cheapest Core 2 Duo notebook in the market that can also be configured with Intel Core Duo Mobile (Yenoh) processor.

The E1405 sports a 14-inch screen and has a memory of up to 2GB, a SATA hard drive with 60-100GB capacity or 120GB PATA hard disc. Users can choose between Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1300 with 128MB of video memory, RADEON X1400 with 256MB or NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 with 256MB memory.

The E1405 also has the next generation WLAN 802.11n standard that has 5x the speed and twice the range of the 11g that most notebooks currently use. It also has Bluetooth and supports 802.11b and g wireless networks. Aside from the T5500 CPU, you also have the choice of having your E1405 configured with Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (speed of 2GHz and 4MB cache), or T7400 (speed of 2.16GHz and 4MB cache) processor. The notebook's flexibility in its processor gives you the option of customizing your processor and not just settle for the one the laptop comes with.

Dell's E1405 comes with a T5500 processor, a CD/DVD burner, and a DVD combo drive and sells for $779.

Mac Rumors seems to be the most apt place to keep hearing about this... though we do wish Apple would make make a definitive announcement. WWDC 2006 came and went, and we still have no official word on the mysterious Merom CPU and whether it will make an appearance on the newest MacBook release.

According to Mac Rumors and their linked report from Reg Hardware, Asustek is supposed to be making new MacBooks with the new CPU, instead of the previously used processor, known as "Yonah." All that we know so far are vague ideas of the specs of the Merom: it is supposed to go up to a max clock speed of 2.33 GHz and be a Core 2 Duo, which is meant to be more powerful than the Core Duo CPU, "Yonah."

It's genius how they're keeping tight-lipped about it and making the rumors spread to intrigue others, but too much silence is just as annoying as being wishy-washy over details and decisions.

Let's hope Apple makes up its mind and gives us all an answer soon, shall we?

Merom, which is the code name of the mobile variant of the Intel Core 2 processor, is allegedly going to replace Yonah. Yonah is another code name for the Intel Core Duo chip found in the iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, and now it is one step away from being somewhat outdated, but not obsolete.

When asked for more info on Merom, Intel could only say that it is "a mobility-optimized, dual-core processor based on the new, state of the art, Intel Core microarchitecture". Their selfishness on details resulted to more backfence talks about the product which was recently announced together with its desktop counterpart -- the Conroe. One of those rumors that have been gaining ground is that Merom will be marketed as the Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile and is destined to replace the current 2MB Yonah chips found in MacBook Pros.

Merom comes with a 667 MHz frontside bus and 4 MB of L2 cache, double the 2MB found in current MacBook Pros. Intel is offering Merom in 2.0, 2.16 and 2.33GHz clock speeds. Apple will most likely announce new Intel-based Mac Pro desktops at WWDC on August 7. And until nothing official comes out from Apple, this will just join the long list of WWDC 2006 Apple rumors.