Acer, Sager or XPS?

Let me preface this by saying I am new to these forums, and I have owned a number of desktops, but never bought/owned a notebook. Thus any and all opinions and advice are much appreciated. With that said I have the following min. requirements from my school (college) that must be met

1.5 GHz Intel centrino (they specifically say centrino, but I call and asked and was told it just has to be comparable in speed...)
512 ram (DDR)
40 gig HDD
DVD/CDrw
10/100 Mbps NIC card as well as 11 Mbps (811b/g)
Since I need to drag it to all my classes weight is somewhat of an issue, but since class is only a 2 min walk I consider it a minor issue (under 10lbs is my goal, which shouldn't be too hard to meet). As well there are outlets for power in the rooms so that is not an issue either.

the only thing that stopped me from getting some low end model that just covers these requirements is before they implemented the policy: "where every student needs a notebook," I was planning on building a desktop gaming machine to replace my old one, but then I decided it might make more sense to get a notebook and hold off on a desktop till PCI express boards and cards are out since I need to spend the money on a notebook no matter what. Therefore I figured my new min requirements so as to not need a desktop for 6-12months are

2.0 GHz processor, preferably AMD64 (I am flexible as to the chip and speed but AMD seems to be better for gaming)
1gig DDR ram (PC4000 would be nice but at least 2700)
60gig HDD (7200 rpm but again I am flexible as to specifics in terms of RPM)
DVD/CDRW
raedon 9700 128m
there was no mention of what type of screen size or resolution in the min requirements from my school, but i can't see me needing anything more than an SXGA
Still need the Wireless and Network card from above and the portability (or lack there of as stated above )
I had put away $1000 for my desktop and then when the new policy about notebooks was implemented i got another $1000 from student aid to cover cost. Thus my budget is aprox $2000


I looked at the Acer 3200 Ferrari
Several of the sagers
The Dell XPS
Voodoo PC (way to expensive so i excluded it right away)
and Alienware M-51


any advice and all opinions are welcomed...thanks in advance

Thanks everyone for responses. I priced out a 3790 on pctorque but the 12cell battery was out of stock(I checked a few other sites as well, but the only ones that listed the 12cell where either significantly more or I had never bought from or heard of, thus I didn’t know how reliable they where…as well I want to buy from pctorque because I went on the sager forum and read some of the posts and Pctorque seems to really go to bat for its customers). So then i thought about the xps but the general perception/consensus is that the dell xps is fastest but not portable I am thinking it might not be such a great idea, cause even that 2min walk everyday will begin to get to be a bit much lugging that much and books. So I think I will either get one of the other Sagers or the Acer Ferrari, but I was really hoping to get a 1024 memory at some point, I have upgraded desktop but never notebooks so I was wondering how hard comparatively and is their a good site with some instruction/walkthroughs/etc? As well i have narrowed it down to sager 3790 or 5690 or The Farrari...