Help me choose the right computer!

[EngineeringStudent]

I am an entering freshmen engineering student at a major university. I need help selecting a notebook computer for the fall! I would prefer a notebook because I kind of dont like the idea of lugging a desktop around because college life is so mobile. But I am going to be running very large and intensive programs on this computer- such as Mathematica, Matlab, etc. I also want to be able to play Doom3 and have it look pretty descent! Right now I am leaning toward the pentium m because on full p4 platform the battery is essentially useless and the thing is so darn big and overheats. Right now I am considering:
IBM Thinkpad T42p
1.8GHz Dothan pentium m
1024MB DDR SDRAM
128MB ATI Fire GL T2
15" 1600*1200 display
60GB 7200 rpm HDD
WiFi b/g
Windows XP Pro
CD +/- RW DVD-ROM
Bluetooth III amd v.92 modem integrated
Gigabit Ethernet

Those are the core components! Sounds pretty good to me but I dont know how well pentium m really works on tough applications and games- please advise! Thanks

[Venombite]

Here's an link another user posted and it does a comparison between P4, AMD64, Pentium M (Banias & Dothan) & Celeron M. I think it'lll give you the info you need.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2129&p=1

Another system type you may want to look at is the HP NW8000. Has similar specs and may be a bit cheaper.

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