Those are great specifications --you have the new Dothan 1.7 Pentium M with the doubled system L2 cache, the faster 5400 hard drive, and a DVD burner (I guess you need that as it is usually $200 US more than a CD-RW/DVD ROM in most notebooks).

The key issue here is to determine if Asus has a good enough repair record / facility in North America.

Dell, HP, and Toshiba can all be difficult to work through the outsourced techical support representatives (overseas) but HP has 2 repair facilities in North America and Toshiba and Dell are similar.

Find out if you can where your Asus notebook would have to go if it requires repair.

The specifications look great though otherwise.