What is the best laptop for the money

I am replacing a Dell 600m Inspirion which was stolen.
The machine will be mostly for MS Office Programs, primarily Word, Excel & Powerpoint and for integrating on my company and home network. When I am on the road I may watch an occasional DVD and listen to music on Rhapsody.
My old machine had Win XP Pro to enable me to work on my company network; which version of Vista will I need now, or should I stick with XP for the time being?
I do not want to buy more machine than I need, however I would like it not to be obsolete in 3 years! With that in mind what kind of CPU-AMD or Intel, and how much memory?
I liked my old Dell for it's durability and my ability to customize it.
Should I stick with it or go to Best Buy and buy a Toshiba, Gateway or HP off the shelf?
I would love to stay in the $1,000 range.
Thanks,
Pete

The Inspiron 1520 has what you're looking for.

It's with Intel's Core 2 Duo and you can customize it really well.

Search online for coupons, there's a ton.

For memory, you'll be OK with 1 GB, but I STRONGLY recommend 2 GB.

At the rate technology is being invented, I don't think you can buy a laptop that won't be obsolete in 3 years.

It will work, and everything, but don't expect it to run like new and run everything you throw at it. It should be fine for what you're looking for, though.