'Infra Red' amd 'Wireless' are 2 different technologies. You need to specifically state that you want the machine to actually contain a wireless card or have it built-in to the board. or processor. We bought an Intel Centrino machine which had it all built in but the other so-called 'wireless-enabled' machine we got had to make do with a PCMCIA card, which is a bit clunky - it sticks out the side of the machine.
I think most current laptops on sale (in the UK at least) have wireless working straight out of the box.
We have a wireless LAN for 4 machines using an Internet connection via our Cable TV supplier. The wireless router just plugs into the back of the Cable box under the telly. No problems with all of us accessing the net at once. We also have a single wireless printer centrally located in the house. Every now & again we get the pounding of footsteps coming down the stairs to grab what they've printed. The laptops save a huge amount of space in their rooms and they can take them round their mates' place if they want too.
The school they go to automatically assumes they're going to do at least some of their homework using a computer, though it's nice to see them still doing stuff in the old way in an exercise book!
I'll agree the minimum spec is 128Mb graphics & 512 Meg RAM & 40Gb hard drive, though we've just filled up one of those on a laptop - mixture of digital pix & iTunes stuff - so bigger is better. Processor speed doesn't seem to matter above about 1.5GHz.
BTW, we invested in the insurance - might seem like a lot but laptop repairs are quite expensive.
Cheers,
The Odd One