Help me choose the right Laptop for recording & gigging?!

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Please help me choose a laptop! I will be using the laptop for 2
purposes:
1) A Portable Recording Studio
2) Gigging with Reason's Soft Synths

I already have a Presonus Firepod 8 channel recording interface, a midi
keyboard, Cubase, and Reason.

My Ideal Laptop Requirements:

Windows XP SP1, Pentium4 or PentiumM or Celeron, 1 GHz Processor or
faster, 512 MB Ram, Firewire port or a free PCMCI slot for a firewire
card, USB2.0, 20 Gig HD, CDR drive

Any recommendations...preferably under $850??

Which of those processers would be best?
Is it true that the faster processors eat up batteries quicker...if
so...then for my situation--what do you suggest as far as a good
balance between speed, power, and battery endurance.

What about a Dell Inspiron 1000 or 6000?