Originally posted by: ZeroBurn
i couldn't get the extra 10% coupon for the dell, but i ended up going with the Compaq 1500T.
COMPAQ PRESARIO 1500T NOTEBOOK
                15.0INCH TFT SXGA+DISPLAY     
ATI RADEON 32MB 7500 MOBILITY
                56K V92 MODEM               
                256MB DDR SDRAM 1 DIMM (1 extra slot to upgrade later)
                MOBILE INTEL CELERON 1.40   
                30GB HARD DRIVE                             
8X DVD                     
                WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION     
                8 CELL LION BATTERY          
                1.44MB INTEGRATED FLOPPY   
                INTEGRATED 10/100 NIC CAR   
$1,355.57 before $100 rebate, $1,255.57 after.
external firewire cdrws go for less than $100, so i'll be picking one of those up sometime later on.  the laptop weighs about 1lb more than the Dell Inspiron 4150, but that's the tradeoff i suppose.
Big Pluses over the Dell: 15" SXGA (i compared the 14" XGA and the SXGA and i must say, it's a drastic improvement.  something you want to look into), 1 firewire and 2 usb 2.0's, as opposed to the Dell's 1 USB 1.1 (i believe).  Also the Radeon chip.  Heh, my dad's bday is coming up, the free luggage will help out there 

  oh, and the compaq looks spiffier too 
Minuses: half the memory (but i'm sure i'll eventually fork out the extra $70 for another 256mb), and a celery cpu instead of the 1.7ghz.  also i don't get a convenient dvd/cdrw combo, but on the bright side i get to use the cdrw with other machines.