You'll love the Dell laptop. I have a couple of them here and theyre much more durable than ones I've had in the past from IBM, Sharp, toshiba, etc. Haven't had any major problems with ours.
Often its cheaper to get them with a small amount of RAM and get the ram online for a fraction of the price. (it just snaps in underneath the laptop with the removal of one screw).
15" is a decent viewable size.
I'd suggest getting a bigger than usual hard disk, adding more ram, carrying case, and maybe one of the 3 year mail in warrantees. If you plan to use it more than 2 hours at a time without power, maybe even a second battery.
There are often some GREAT coupon deals at
www.thedailydeals.com for laptops and computers, usually from Dell. Last week they had a 2.4ghz Intel P4 system, 15" flat LCD monitor, 128 Ram, 20gb drive, 48x cd, WinXP, network card, Word, shipping, etc for only $538. The WinXP and monitor alone would cost that much if you bought from a retail store. You can also save 2% more at Dell by going to
www.ebates.com first and signing up for their free rebate program. If you do, use
rhody401@aol.com as a referral
Ebates is great and I get a check from them every 3 months. They've sent about 700.00 so far in 2 years.
Best of luck in shopping for the new laptop!