Lol you seem to be decided on what you want already. Why ask if you're so hesitant about the HD? Well in either case, if you're just gonna use your laptop for law school, I'm assuming you'll mostly (or completely) be using it for Office and other productivity (read non-gaming) programs. In that case, screw the HD. All the HD will really improve is the loading time of windows all your programs. Last I saw, Word doesn't take too long to load....regardless of 5400rpm or 7200rpm HD's. I'm also pretty sure you really don't need the 1.6 ghz cpu upgrade. But if you're hellbent on upgrading, then go with the cheaper upgrade since you say you won't be needing the extra space. Now if you intend to do some GAMING or gonna be downloading some files (errr....legal of course 😉 ) that's a different story. In that case, i'd recommend the HD.