I am thinking about a new one too. Looking at HP Core Duo's myself, but really I am still fond of my three year old 1.8Ghz Pentium IV. It is a real brick though. Interesting that you still only find 1.8 -2.4 Ghz readily available in the Celeron Mobile families that are the fastest in current laptops. (unless I am missing something) 
Hard decision 64bit or dual-core?

I personally like the HP nx9000 series.

Arrrgh... as soon as you get it something bigger and shinier comes out though.