Some questions from a newbie...

core duo proccesor is the way to go, but it depends, but its usually the way to go cuz its cheap and really good, but if u want to wait, u can wait for the core duo 2 which will be amazing!!!!!! and by the way what are you planning to do with this laptop?.... gaming, photoshop,CAD, GFX,etc....

welcome to the boards neal, i hope you have a wonderful experience here
now, on to your questions:

-the two processors i think youre talking about are the following.
i)pentium m [centrino]
ii) intel core duo
the difference is, one is single core and older, the other is dual core and newer. if price becomes too much of a limiting factor, then pentium m [centrino] is just fine, but if you can, go for core duo

-as for the dvd drives, i have a dvd-rom/cdrw which is simply a cd-writer and a dvd reader. when you talk about "dual dvd" i assume you mean dual layer dvd burner. this simply means you can burn dual layer disks [up to 8.5 gigabytes]. if youre talking about dual dvd-writer drives [ie: two physical dvd-writers] i cant tell you how much of a performance increase youre going to be getting, and i dont know what you would do with two dvd writers in the first place.

some questions you have to ask yourself are the follwing:
-how much am i willing to spend? [give yourself a flexible number]
-how big of a laptop do i want? [12",14",15",17", or maybe an ultra-portable]
-what kind of graphics do i want? [integrated, dedicated, very powerful, decent...the size of the notebook is also going to determine what kind of graphics options you will end up having.]
-what kind of hard drive speed and capacity do i want? [5400rpm, 7200rpm, 60gb, 100gb, raid drives]
-and finally, battery life [depending on the components you choose, you may have to sacrifice on this]

so you should futureproof your machine and pay the extra 200- 300 dollars to get the dual core and dvd writer and a good graphics card

asus and alienware are the best laptop companies in my opinion, acer is OK, but not the best, but alienware is the best for future proofing becuase they all look really cool, and no other laptop has that look, and with asus, you have the power and reliability, and with the W3J, it looks cool too, but those brands are very good becuase they dont skimp out on power or coolness, so they are good brands, but its entirely up to you, nobody here can make you buy any laptop(i hope thats true) but we can only help, its all up to you and your needs

from your post, i gather that you need the following.

-decent processor [we dont need to go overboard here since all you will be doing is office work and light gaming. however, if you were to define office work as cad, and rendering, and light gaming as heavy bf2 playing, this could change]
-at least 1gb of ram. [this is considered the "Standard" nowadays because of the increasing demand a system has for this precious commodity]
-60gb hard drive [this is a moderate amount of space and should serve you well if office work and light gaming are all you have in mind.]
-a dvd writer is always good to have, as i can tell you that it is something i regret not getting when i initially purchased my laptop.
-since portability is an issue, i highly recommend against a 17" laptop, and point you towards the more portable 14-15" machines, and even a 12".

remember, any of these suggestions can change depending on what kind of office work, and what kind of gaming.
if by office work you mean word, excel, mail, and powerpoint, then these recommendations are fine. however, if by office work you mean something exponentially more intense, then the suggestions would change. the same goes for what you mean by gaming.

right now, what i can suggest to you are the following
acer:
-w3j
this seems like a great solution to your needs. core duo, 14", relatively light, powerful, and decently priced [$1800]
alienware
-an alienware of the same configuration costs around $200 usd more than the acer.
dell
-by owning one, i may seem somewhat partial to them, but i am not. something with portability on the mind [a 12" model, the m1210], great performance [identical processor to the w3j, 2 gb ram, 100gb hard drive, dvd burner, dedicated graphics which are comparable to the w3j, and wireless, this seems to fit your needs perfectly. they can be configured at a very low price and offer great service.

other brands that you should look into are ibm, sony [bit overpriced for my taste, but meh], sager, and toshiba

The only other thing I could think of would be to give Mac's a look as well. if your going to be useing this for work I would get something that looks Pro not like a toy. IBM, HP, ASUS, and Dell would be were I would look.

he's right, and i apologize for not mentioning the mac.
right now, i can recommend a decently configured macbook pro, or a decently configured macbook as alternatives to my previous suggestions. chances are the professional apps you might be using are made as universal binaries, or are written for osx. now with parallels and bootcamp, you can even use windows on the machine.

Bingo Piemaster.

Only draw back you have to buy XP but go to frys and pick it up OEM and your fine I think it was 79 for home and 99 for Pro.