I went away from the mainstream manufacturers, because most of them are either thin and light, or massive desktop replacement, with little middle ground between the two, as well as not having many options when it came to detailed customization.
I ended up paying around $2200, for what was the very best you could get at the time, until PCI-E and Sonoma came out three months later
15.1" SXGA+ display @1400x1050
2.0 ghz Dothan
1024 MB RAM
60 GB 7200 RPM hdd
128 MB Mobility 9700 Pro
Integrated a/b/g wireless
CD-RW/DVD drive (Didn't want to waste an extra $200 on the DVD burner I'd never use)
It's nice and thin, light for the power it packs in (6.25 lbs) and gets great battery life--around 4-5 hours doing word processing/web browsing, and around 2.5-3 while watching DVD's.
Works great, would have been nice if they were making larger 7200 RPM drives at the time, as I quickly filled mine, but I got an external 200 gig for $115. Best part was I got it $1000 cheaper than the closest configuration Dell had, which was the only mainstream manufacturer that had a product similar to what I wanted.
Still runs anything I can throw at it, great for CAD, and games, but I wish I had waited for PCI-E/Sonoma for the next generation graphics and processor.