[Mike]

Thanks for the help guys.

As far as the DVD drive, I'd like to keep that. I would hate (in the event I have to reformat) to have to make backups on 10 CDR's, I'd much rather use DVD's. Plus, I'll probably watch some movies on it too. It's more convenience than priority, so I'll look into getting just a CD-RW drive and a faster HDD.

Battery life isn't too much of a concern for me, most of the work i'm going to be doing on it will be at school, home, or competitions. 2 hours is more than enough battery life for me.

Weight is also a minimal issue for me, I won't be traveling much with it... it's mostly a desktop replacement.

Originally, I was questioning how good a 4200 RPM would be... but on some sites I found they were saying 4200 RPM is normal for laptops to keep down heat/noise. I'll look into a 5400 RPM.

Thanks again for the help guys


EDIT: Starting to lean towards the Pavilion, from your guys requests. I toned down the DVD drive, and upped the HDD. Here's what I came out with:
Pavilion ZV6000
Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ (2.0GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
Screen: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800)
Graphics Card: 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M
RAM: 1.0GB DDR SDRAM
HDD: 80 GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Price: $1,253
HP has a 1 year parts/labor warranty on their Pavilions.