If you aren’t going to be doing anything processor intensive, and you care about battery life and size/weight, get a Centrino. If you are going to do processor intensive tasks, then get a P4 (even better if it is HT enabled).
If you aren’t doing anything processor intensive, I think you would be better served by a Centrino. In normal usage, the Centrino will be faster than all but the fastest P4s, and the battery will last a lot longer.
Note that Centrino is a marketing name that means the notebook has Intel wireless inside. Many notebook makers are choosing not to use the Intel wireless, instead using a different vendor for the wireless. These notebooks can’t be called Centrino, but they are powered by the same Pentium-M processor that Centrino is. So, when shopping, Pentium-M is the same as Centrino as far as computing power goes.
As for what you can get, I would get the fastest processor, the most RAM, and the largest HD that your budget will allow.
If you find that you can’t get exactly what you want within your budget, then I would skimp on processor speed to get more RAM, as you will notice significantly better performance with more RAM than with a faster processor.
Apple is a neat (but expensive) toy, and as much as I like them, “toy” is the key word here. You won’t be able to run a lot of popular software packages, as well as most of the small utilities, programs, and knick-knacks that are often cool & useful (and free). I’ve noticed a lot of hardware too, like mp3 players, PDAs, etc, also don’t have Mac software/drivers. The exception is if you are an artist, as a lot of software that artists use is only available on Mac.
:lovestruck: