Thanks, Silverblade - The choice of laptop is for health reasons.  My neck won't let me sit at a desktop for any length of time.  I know what you mean though, a desktop choice would be a lot better.  However, in my case that's not an option.

Unfortunately, it didn't look as though there was a possibility to upgrade to 8 GB of RAM with the more powerful series.  I was hoping someone with experience in quad processors w/4 GB of RAM vs. dual processors w/8 GB of RAM could give some advice.