Laptop Advice

Hey Guys,
I recently built the PC listed to the left under 'My System', and require a laptop for school. Previously, I have used a laptop as my primary system, for playing games as well as office programmes. However, I now need my own laptop for A-levels, and I'm debating quite what to do.

In effect, I have 2 options:

Option 1: Budget Laptop + Parts
I have in my possession a 1.7ghz Banias Pentium M, as well as some PC2700 2x512mb RAM. I would have thought that it would be plausible for me to buy a budget laptop using the old Pentium M socket, and fit these 3 components to enhance the speed to a level which would allow me to run Office 2007 and Vista comfortably. If anyone could suggest a laptop which is cheap and has (preferably) non-integrated graphics, which I could fit these components into for better performance, please say. :)

Option 2: Buy New
Due to my primary gaming system being a desktop now, I am interested in getting the cheapest laptop I can find with performance I require. Although Core 2 laptops are not yet widely available, I am looking for a Core 2 based laptop with 512mb/1gb of RAM. Although discrete graphics of any nature would be ideal, fairly decent integrated would be ok. Size is not an issue, and neither is the screen resolution. If anybody knows of laptops which may fit this profile, which are out now or soon to be released, please say. My budget is around £500, and is the case with Option 1, it needs to be able to run Office 2007 and ideally Vista comfortably. :)

Thanks for any help you can give. :)

I was in a similar position - wanting a laptop that would play games (ie non integrated graphics) and configured this spec for myself;

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/1206/dell1vt8.png

The total comes to £941 when they are doing free double memory & free delivery, but regardless should still be easily within your £1200 budget.

The other option is to pay a (hefty) price premium for something with a 7800/7900, but if you are not worried about gaming, then it wouldnt be much use - the Inspiron 6400 comes Vista Capable, so I would have though the graphics would be up to scratch :)

Core 2 Duo wise - if you are willing to wait a month and pay the early adopters tax then they will become available. However when I looked at the benchmarks I soon saw for the majority of tasks that I was doing, there was very little benefit, and as such a limited justification for spending extra and waiting for core2duo. Architecturally its very similar to the Yonah based Core Duo, but with 4mb of L2 cache compared with 2mb on CD.


Dave

Thanks for the advice Dave. :)

Although I agree the increase in performance is negligable at best, it's the 64-bit capability of the Core 2s which I am interested in; I hope to install x64 edition of Vista on both my desktop and laptop. :)

That 6400 looks like an excellent deal; I'll certainly look into it if/when Dell brings Core 2 support to that range. In the mean time, can anybody suggest any good ultraportable ranges it'd be worth checking out, and indeed, suggest any basic laptops I could upgrade using the components I detailed. :)

Due some financial constraints, I'm ammending the 'caliber' of laptops I am looking at, and have therefore edited accordingly in the first post. My new price range is loosely around £500. :)