Well, I think you would want to confirm with HP it's "Vista ready" if you want to keep it for a few years. Honestly though you won't be getting the bennies of a dual core chip on XP Home. It will work but you would want the 64 bit version of Windows to get the full range of performance. Unfortunately Win XP 64 bit isn't ready for prime time...some applications hate it, some drivers hate it, etc. XP Home should (XP Pro does, I never really used Home) see the diff. cores are seperate processors but it won't automatically say, burn a CD on one proc while running iTunes on the other.
I think any modern chip should be able to multi-task on the items you want, I burn CDs and run 5-6 different apps on my Dell w/a 3.0 Intel single core chip all the time.
I wouldn't call any laptop with Intel integrated graphics very media friendly either...
As far as speakers, I wouldn't make that the defining issue. All laptop speakers suck, some just suck more. If you travel with it I'd imagine you'll be using headphones to watch movies/listen to music.
Here are my laptop buying rules...unless you are playing games or doing video editing...Price, customer support, weight. Because it will be out of date in a few years no matter what you do. Save the $$ here and invest it in your desktop down the road.
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