It's going to be a Merry, Merry Christmas
Well after doing a good bit of research I finally decided to go with an Apple laptop. Thanks to everyone who gave me input about what to get and not to get (particularly Adam, the ultimate Apple champion). I ended up with a refurbished Powerbook (15 inch, 1.5 gig combo drive, 512MB DDR333 SDRAM, 80GB Hard Drive, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (64 MB DDR), AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0 +, Enhanced Data Rates, Backlit keyboard). My baby will be waiting for me in New Mexico when I arrive, although I suspect my parents will insist on wrapping it and putting it under the tree, so I might not be able to fire it up for another week.