Which one...Can't decide!!!

Well, I caved in to all of your comments about desktops and decided to go with one. Really, it was an easy decision after seeing the boatloads of better features you can get by getting a desktop--all for the same price as a laptop! It became a no brainer and I ended up getting over my tight space issues. You'll see I sort of went in the opposite direction of "compact," lol. Here's a full description of the setup:

-HP w2558hc 25.5-inch Vivid Color Widescreen Flat-Panel Monitor with Integrated Speakers, 1920x1200, x2 HDMI, ambient light sensor, built-in
15-in-1 media card reader, 2 USB ports, webcam 2.0 mP

-[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]HP Pavilion Elite d5100t ATX PC
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q9550 (2.83GHz)
- 8GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM (4x2048)
- 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT, 2 DVI, HDMI adapter
- 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
- Premium Wireless-N LAN card and Bluetooth(R )
- Blu-ray writer & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
- 16x max. DVD-ROM
- 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio, video (for TV Tuner)
- TV tuner, dual format ATSC-NTSC with PVR, remote
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
- Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
- Norton 360(TM ) - 15 month
- HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouse
- 320 GB 5400rpm HP Pocket Media Drive
- 1 TB 7200 rpm HP Personal Media Drive with bay
- HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

All this for around the same price as the laptop with their special sale.
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are there even enough deviced capable of playing home-burned blu-ray to make it worthwhile?

go with the AMD processor option.... oh wait.. there isnt one. ;)

and remember.. that super-cool quad core processor is pretty much a pre-emptive paperweight, unless they upgraded the majority of software last night and I didn't notice.
 
FYI...the AMD Phenom is Quad core...

Also 4200 RPM is pretty much the standard for laptop drives.
I bought a bare bones HP laptop, and gutted it, and swapped in new RAM and A new HDD... Now its FAST, and cost me like $750.
 
are there even enough deviced capable of playing home-burned blu-ray to make it worthwhile?

go with the AMD processor option.... oh wait.. there isnt one. ;)

and remember.. that super-cool quad core processor is pretty much a pre-emptive paperweight, unless they upgraded the majority of software last night and I didn't notice.

Most of the newer stats show Intel being the better processor ATM. I had the AMD option elsewhere, but I just wasn't impressed with what I was seeing. That's why I went Intel over AMD. Not sure what you mean by paperweight--seems pretty functional from what I've seen. FWIW, I have a PS3 (new firmware) that accepts home-burned Blurays (even BD-LTH), as well as my new Bluray drive :). So yes, very worthwhile for me. The CPU is connected to my TV via one of the HDMI ports, so I can watch it on my 52" 1080p Bravia.
 
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