if your focus is gaming on a laptop check out the alienware area51m mobile gaming PC thing is nuts

I agree but if just for fun Toshiba is almost as good and cost less.

Still think should wait untill after Vista is out. All windows machines will have/need better specs.

No need to wait. Every authorized Windows vendor is offering a free upgrade to Vista when it comes out. You just need to make sure the machine you buy is Vista ready.

I am sticking with XP pro instead of Vista the last thing I want to do is troubleshoot another OS that microsoft wont get right until the second or third service pack

I own two L and one T they both seem good. The L are gennerally lighter and if plan to carry it around the L is the way to go. To get a discount on a L use this site:
http://www.realtor.org/realtor_benefits/index.html

Apple Macbook Pro is the ticket !

Vista has already been released to corp users figure that by Feb most of the troubleshooting will be done?

They did the same thing with XP pro and it still took over a year after full release before SP2 came out (IIRC closer to two years) personally I am teaching myself Linux right now so I can go with Lindows and just debug any issues as they come up

Beta testing gets rid of initial major issues the security exploits and everything wont be known until hackers get ahold of it and people that dont have regular maintainance schedules on thier PCs (like a corporate enviornment does) get in there and start screwing things up

My company (aka "the enterprise") uses both Lenovo and Dell as standard issue. I usually abuse the hell out of my laptops so I can keep upgrading. The Stinkpad T42 that I've had for the past 1.5 years keeps running like the Eveready bunny. I keep hoping it will die so I can get a T60, but it refuses to cooperate. Thinkpads are superb road warriors and the overall best business laptops. I see more travelling users at airports carrying Thinkpads than any other brand.

At work, I also have a 6 month old Dell Inspiron 1705 that doubles as my desktop which was given to me by a colleague in exchange for a conventional desktop PC. It's been trouble free, but I'm certain the Dell would not handle the torture of constant travel as well as the Lenovo. However, its feature set makes the Thinkpad look positively barren.

That being said, last week I bought a Dell Inspiron 1505 for my wife, pretty much loaded up with every conceivable goodie (dual core Centrino, 1.66 ghz, 667 mhz bus, 160GB Wifi and Bluetooth built in, dual layer DVD burner, Ultrabrite UVGA widescreen) including a free upgrade to Windows Vista Home, a free Fuji A400 4MP digital camera (!), and a free 3 year At Home warranty for $1100 out the door.

I got $300 off because of Dell's current holiday sale, plus another $200 off for corporate discounting. The 3 year warranty by itself is a $300 upgrade.

A similarly equipped Lenovo Thinkpad Z61 would have cost approximately $1800 before tax including a corporate discount and without a warranty upgrade. The Thinkpad would have been my preference, but the Dell's are so much cheaper.

Bottomline here is that if it was on the company's dime, I'd buy a Thinkpad. But because it's on my dime, the Dell was the practical way to go.

I just got a Dell D620. Pretty nice machine.