When ice skating is an Olympic event in hell. I had a D600 that was never worth the exorbitant amount I paid for it and I had to replace at a time when a comparable computer would still have been viable.
Given your requirements, I don't know that a laptop is really your best choice. I would tend toward a desktop. But you may have additional requirements that mean you need the portability of a laptop.
Given what you have told us, I would look at the HP line of widescreen computers. My fiance has a dv8000 and I have a dv9000. The display is fabulous, the graphics are nVidia, you can save a pricepoint and get the AMD Turion and forgo the Intel. But it is also available with Intel. Onboard storage is not the issue it once was, you can get additional USB storage pretty inexpensively these days.
I have XP and have tossed the MS stuff that I don't use- IE for example- and replaced with other software that is smaller and quicker. I have also tweaked the system in a variety of ways to improve performance.
One of the things that I recommend to any laptop user is to be aware of the cooling requirements. I have my laptop resting on a wire rack that lifts the unit about an inch off the desktop surface. This permits improved air handling and will keep the machine cooler over all.
