[RyanMcE]

Mike,

HP & Compaq are the same company, and I'd give it a 99.9% chance that the only differences between #1 and #3 on your list are cosmetic. In fact, I have a Compaq (Presario 2585) that is a carbon copy of a friend's HP Pavillion of some different model number.

Now, if I were you, and given the description you gave, you have no need of the DVD-R drive in each of the machine. If I were you, I'd look to drop that in favor of a faster HDD. You'll find, if this is your first laptop, that the slower-spinning HDD (most desktop HDD's are 7200 RPM) is the biggest limit on your performance, especially when multitasking.

1 GB of memory should be sufficient for what you do. I do just fine with 512 MB except when I get big photoshop files going. Then I work on my desktop which has a gig and 4x RAID 0 swap disks. =D

And another question - are you getting a laptop simply for mobility, or to be actually working for long periods of time without cords? If just the former, I'd go with the Athlon 64 - the increased performance should please you. I have a friend who is very happy with hers. On the other hand, if battery life is the big thing for you, I'd take another look at the Pentium M's as that is their "speciality" and, frankly, they will still be plenty fast.

Oh, and one more caveat: my old HP Pavillion, and my friend's, which was similar but with a different model number, both have had intermittent problems with certain keys on the keyboard not working. This is a very frustrating problem, but I could never track it down. That being said, my compaq presario that I am currently using is made by the same company and has had no such problems.

Oh, and unless you are especially rough on your machinery, stay away from any extended warranties.