Well, now I am a proud owner of a one of the most powerful laptops available under two grand. Core Duo 2.0 Ghz, 2 Gb RAM, 120 Gb HDD, 1900x1200 17" screen and NVidia 7900 GS. I am just loving it. It did come with Windows and lots of ther crap which I removed right away. I did reinstall Windows (XP Media Center) to see how it works (it's been a long time :P) and for some gaming (HL2: Episode One in particular, it's been a long time :P). I also installed Ubuntu Dapper as the primary workspace (as something stable, quick to set up and boringly non-experimental). Debian as the development platform and primary experimentation base and one more 5 Gb partition stayed free so that I can try out other stuff (like Gentoo) when I feel like it.
I must say that installing Ubuntu and Windows in quick succession was a very, very interesting experience. I am considering repeating that and writing down everything with plenty of unusual screenshots to trully compare the experience. I must say that Ubuntu fared the best and Windows being waaay behind on usability and installlability with all kinds of wierdness.
Note: I did not install Debian here yet - university presses to work.