Laptop Recommendation

I'm nearly in the same boat as you, Steath, only with a $1800 budget. I need a new laptop to replace my old HP and I'm leaning towards a customized Asus.

So I went to AGear (http://www.agearnotebooks.com/) and spec'ed an Asus Z70Va:

1. Display: 15.4 inch WSXGA+ (1680x1050) TFT LCD
2. Processor: 1.86GHz Intel Pentium M 750 (Sonoma) w/2MB L2 Cache - 533FSB
3. Thermal Paste: High Density Polysynthetic Silver CPU Thermal Compound Paste (+$20.00)
4. Graphics & Video: ATI Mobility Radeon X700 PCI Express w/128MB VRAM
5. Memory: 1.0GB DDR2-533MHz Memory (1x1024MB) (+$99.00)
6. Hard Drive: 60GB 5,400 rpm Ultra DMA HDD (+$65.00)
7. DVD/CDRW Drive: 8X DVD Dual-RW Dual Layer/CD-RW Drive w/Software (+$60.00)
8. Wireless LAN: Built-in Intel PRO/Wireless 2915 Tri-Mode 802.11A/B/G LAN
9. Bluetooth: Built-in Bluetooth (+$60.00)
A. Main Battery: 8-Cell Smart Li-ion Battery: 4+ hours
B. Second Battery: None.
C. Second Hard Drive: None.
D. MS Windows OS: No MS Windows Operating System
E. MS Office XP Software: None.

$1616

Fujitsu is also a good choice -- the Lifebook N3510 is another choice of mine.

Jam it back in, in the dark.