should be an ASUS Z62J coming out with core duo here in the first week of february, it has discrete graphics but at the moment the exact chipset has not been revealed
if you have a bluetooth adapter, that is all you should need....your phone should then show up under "my bluetooth places" and you can browse its music and pictures with explorer...and for the phonebook you can sync with outlook over bluetooth with the standard drivers
IE2 is no good for gaming...for the newer games you can't even install them because it doesn't support stuff in hardware...maybe if you could find one with the new GMA900 integrated graphics from intel...otherwise that amd system sounds pretty good
check out the local malls...the usually have dell kiosks...and if you're lucky one of them will have a 700m...there doesn't seem to be any standard as to what machines they have out, so its kind of hit or miss
my friend has an emachines 6810...if that drive comes out, it doesn't slide outwards...there are no visible edges around it except the faceplate for the tray itself...we were thinking of adding a burner to his too...but couldn't figure out how to get the drive out...and there is no documentation...
no 700m for 1st one, keyboard is tiny...perhaps like a T42/43 for that from IBM? very light weight, and good size
for the second, perhaps dell M70 with nvidia quadro...I hear good things about it...otherwise a T42 with the FireGL would work nice