By the way, you mentioned possibly ordering at Best buy versus ordering from HP/Compaq custom.
Best Buy through Saturday 8/14/04 has 2 years no interest financing on any notebook with an Intel cpu (Pentium M Centrino or Pentium 4M). They do have the HPZT3340US on sale for 1250.00 after rebates which is a decent price - and if you are a student who needs to $ now for other use then it is a good deal.
But note: this model has the 705 Pentium M Banias (1mb L2 cache) not the Dothan. It is not a huge difference but only get this at Best Buy if you want to get the free 2 year financing. Also, this model only has 32mb gb video and has 512RAM and a 60gb 4200rpm hard drive.
Also for the hard drive issue (ordering 5400 rpm custom or getting custom 30gb 4200 rpm hard drive (Cheapest) and then adding your own Hitachi 7200 later -- the 5400 rpm is up to 50% faster than the 4200 and the Hitachi is up to 20% faster than the 5400. Some students sell the smaller original 4200 on Ebay or add it to an external enclosure. The Hitachi 7200 can be purchased for $200 or under at newegg, etc.
I have an X1360US compaq X1000 series that is very similar to the Best Buy HPZT3340US but it has a 1.4 Banias Pentium M. But I got this in May 2004 before all the new Dothan cpus came out.
Note, Doom 3 will only play on 64mb video or above so if you will play games go custom.
One more option: if you want the Best buy 2 year no interest financing and you want a notebook that is very similar to the HPZT3000 but has the Dothan 735 Pentium M 1.7, 80gb 4200 hard drive, 512 mb RAM, 64gb dedicated video Nvidia, DVD burner (multiformat) 54g/b wi-fi and also the new hi contrast Trubrite LCD -- look no further -- it is the Toshiba M35S456 also on sale for 1850 at Best Buy. The DVD burner adds $200 and the 1.7 Pentium M adds $125 to what you could get for less on the HP (but without Trubrite).
Also, however, Toshiba has a 10% discount on all custom order notebooks on its website (so you can build it as you want) but I don't think they have the APP student discount.
Both of these notebooks are outstanding and both have the 15.4" LCD --the key advantage to the Toshiba is you want it is the XGA only Trubrite. The harmon/kardon speakers are slightly better but both are good for a notebook.
The Compaq/HP has a better keyboard feel, lower price (especially if ordering custom with APP).
The weight is 6.2 for Toshiba and 6.5 for HP/Compaq and both get similar 3.5-4 hours battery life using wi-fi 100% or more not using that.
The Toshiba has the DVD multiformat burner and HP only has the DVD+ burner but if you just order the CD-RW/DVD ROM that issue will not matter ($200 less)