Which Laptop Is A Better Choice ?

DELL INSPIRON 1525
Congratulations! Your system is ready to be built.We have some recommendations for you highlighted in green below.Components
PROCESSOR Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® SP1 Home Premium Edition – English edit
SYSTEM COLOUR Spring Green edit
LCD AND CAMERA Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280×800) edit
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam edit
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz edit
HARD DRIVE 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability edit
WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card edit
BATTERY OPTIONS 6 Cell Battery edit
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™HD Software Edition edit
Essentials
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE Microsoft Works 9. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD edit
Dell Recommends
Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007! Popular Software Offering: Word, Excel®, Powerpoint® and more.
Upgrade to Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 – Word, Excel + PowerPoint [add $159 $89 or $2/month1]
HARDWARE SERVICES 1 Year Return to Depot Service and Technical Support edit
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days edit
Dell Recommends
Stay protected! Dell’s best value for security solutions is McAfee Security Center. Includes AntiVirus, Firewall, Spyware removal for 36-months!
Upgrade to McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 36-months [add $99 or $2/month1]
INTERNET ACCESS Please contact me with more details edit
Dell Recommends
Receive Up to $200 in Savings! Sign up with select High-Speed Internet Providers. *NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY. Click here to Sign Up!
Upgrade to 3 months of Sympatico Total Performance Internet Service included (ON&QC) add $0
ONLINE DATA STORAGE Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year edit
Accessories
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
GRAPHICS CARD Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
EXTERNAL MODEM Integrated Modem
Label Windows Vista™ Basic
Network Integrated 10/100 Network Card
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1
Processor Branding Intel Pentium® Dual-Core Processor
ORRRR!
Acer Aspire 7720-6681 Notebook PC
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5550
3GB DDR2 SDRAM
320GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
DVD Super-Multi Drive(DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
17” WXGA with CrystalBrite Technology (1440 x 900) Widescreen LCD
802.11a/b/g wireless LAN
V.92 Modem
Integrated webcam
Dolby®-certified surround-sound system with two integrated stereo speakers
Integrated microphone
Ports: 5-in-1 Card Reader, 4 USB 2.0, DC-in; RJ-11 modem; RJ-45 LAN; VGA; Headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support; Microphone-in; Line-in; S-video TV-out; FireWire® (IEEE 1394); CIR (consumer infrared)
Windows Vista Home Premium
Software Included: Acer Arcade, Acer Crystal Eye, Acer Empowering Technology, Acer GameZone, Acer GridVista, Acer Launch Manager, Acer Video Conference Manager, Adobe Acrobat® Reader, CyberLink® PowerProducer™ (trial version), Anti-virus (trial version), NTI CD-Maker™ (trial version)
15.9”W x 11.7”D x 1.5”/1.7”H
Weight: 7.4lbs
1-Year Limited Warranty.

Laptop Choice For College?

i’m going to head off to college this fall as a freshmen, and i was wondering what kind of laptop i should get. my main decision is what size it should be…
is the weight of a 17 inch really worth it?
is 13.3 too small?
or is 15.4 a perfect balance between the two?
i have a budget of 1000 dollars, and now that all laptops around that range go with basically:
duo core cpu (amd or intel)
1 gig ram DDR2
80-160 gig harddrive
and some other neat stuff.
i was wondering what might be the best brand from experience, that can take a beating while still perform at college-needed level. dell, hp, sony?
i would like to use my laptop for all around things:
gaming (graphics good enough for cs source, dod source)
music (downloading)
movies
homework assignments (powerpoint, word)
i would appreciate any input, because i know this question is pretty open-ended.

Dell Xps M1710- Right Choice?

My dad needed a really high performance laptop that could do everything. So I looked at HP, Toshiba laptops and found nothing to really stand out. So i then went to Dell and bought the following laptop:
Dell XPS M1710
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz
RAM: 2GB
OS: WINDOWS VISTA BUSINESS
HDD: 160GB SATA 7400 RPM’S
GRAGHICS: GEFORCE 7950 GTX 512MB
17 INCH ULTRA BRIGHT screen
Will it do the job?