For that money you can get a no frills Athlon64 Mobile setup. My dad recently bought a Compaq Presario rig with an Athlon64 3000+ and 512mb or Ram. Cost about $1700 Canadian or about $1500US. It was the display model so we got a discount. Ones for that price will probably have a little less. Has an nVida GoForce4 MX440 64mb GPU along with a few other goodies. Laptops are pretty useless for gamming so GPU doesn't matter. Most HDD on laptops are 40gig.

I found a Sony one on NewEgg.com that fits your specs for $1350US. NewEgg is an excellent site for the American computer buyer but I often find my self there just to get prices and to see what's out there.

What you select must have decent everything, it must have a good cpu, good ram and good GFX card... plus the other stuff.  Don't buy a faster processor model that has 256MB of RAM over another that has 512MB, because it won't perform better.  I assume you want to game with laptop, so you will need a decent GFX card, a GF4MX will not cut it, you will need to look at FX5200 minimum.  Radeon 9600 (not se) would be preferable.  If you can get hold of a model with a 9700 in your price range that would be better. 

As with any PC, a good laptop will be an "all rounder", it will not just excel in one area because it lacks in another.

I went to a PC exhibition and came across this one which I'm considering. What dya think?

HP pavilion (I think)
3.40 Ghz CPU (800MHZ bus speed hyper-threading)
60 GB (or 80, I've forgotten) hard drive space
Ge-force 5600(might have been GO) 128 MB vid card with AGP8x
1024 MB DDR RAM (2x 512)
DVD +CD R/W writer
20" screen I think (it was wide anyway)

I need these kind of specs because I'm taking Design Technology as a course in school (and most likely in boarding school) and we'll be using fairly heavy design programs,
Thanks in advance,
Adam.

Thats the one, Harmon/Kardon are quite good.

Just rechecked, I think it is a ge-force 5700GO fX with agp8X, still, I'll see what it would cost to get something better put in (like a radeon 9800 pro or something). Problem is I can't let the price get too high. Also, does anyone know what HP Pavilion laptops are like? And HP service overall? Also, any feedback on getting a Dell would be good. I'm thinking of getting a custom setup, anyone tried that and know what it's like?
Thanks,
Adam.

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nVidia hasn't released the GoForce 6800 yet. There aren't any laptops that have that chipset. It is unlikely that they ever will because the 6800 has high power demands. We'll probably see the 6200 or 6600 on laptops but not the highend.

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I know. I have my dad's old Harmon/Kardon PM645 Amp. It's 20 years old but it still works. Stereo sound has gone on it though.

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Best way to go. That way you'll only pay for what you use. There's really no point in having fance graphics cards or Wi-Fi setups if your just typing notes up.

If you can spare the cash you may want to check out Alienware.  They have laptops that can be "upgraded".  They have high end stuff so you can get and idea of what's out there, that may not be on some sites right now.  www.alienware.com