Looking for Laptop. . .minimum specs?

[AarontheRipper]

I will shortly be in the market for a PC laptop. My wife says that I need to keep it relatively cheap, so a new P4 is out of the question. I want it to be able to play DVD's well (no freezing, jumping, etc), as well as being able to use it for basic school functions. What should I look for as far as minimum standards go? Video, audio, etc. I won't be doing anything that is super processor intensive on it, just basic stuff, and so I'll probably go with a P3 or a Celeron, and I probably won't get a new computer either. I would like to keep it under $700 if possible and am anxious for your suggestions. Thanks.

Also, as far as DVD-R's go, I've heard that there are some serious compatability problems with laptop DVD drives. Any thoughts?

[negon]

if i were you i'd wait for a sale...my dad got this thing where he paid $500 for a laptop and got $400 in free merchandise. we took all the merchandise back and had the laptop for $100. It's a P4 1.5ghz, 20gig HD, 256mb ram, 16x cd-rw and such, great deal. Just watch in your newspaper for ads.

[vitualis]

Get a mobile P3 -- cheaper and more energy efficient than many of the P4 based machines.

Regards.

[Will Hay]

My IBM Thinkpad P3 1000GHz, 20GB HDD, DVD, 256mb RAM, 56K modem, 3Com networking is superb and plays dvd's flawlessly.
I think they're down to the £600 range now.
Will