You will get a lot more useful responses than mine in here, and as someone who is looking for a laptop to recommend to a friend I will be looking closely at the responses re centrino, M, wi-fi etc.
For my pathetic entry, I'll just say accept nothing less than 512MB Ram with Windows XP. I'm not sure what you mean by XP not coming with any media. If you are not provided with a Windows XP disc, you are being ripped off. That doesn't mean a disc you can install on any computer, Bill G is too wise for that, but any new laptop will come with an XP disc which is suitable for reinstallation in the event of a HDD failure.
I will be watching with as much interest as you the response from those who know how to answer your other questions.
(Even a reference to a good FAQ site about Centrino would be nice).
