http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
 
No one can tell you any certain laptop will run smoothly as a DAW unless that person is using that exact laptop. Laptop manufactures are notorious for using a Hodge podge of  parts so there is no guarantee that any given brand or configuration will pass the acid test of DPCLAT latency. It is the nature of the beast. And you pay more for any laptop than the equivalent desktop. And for me a DAW has to have at least 3 Hard drives to make sure my data is backed up.  
 
Sure, certain specs are important and the one scook just mentioned is a spec they will often not even mention. The hard drive should be 7200. Processor speed and RAM are pretty much covered these day by just about all newer computers. Heck, a $300 tablet can out perform my P4 laptop. 
 
Just make sure the laptop you buy can be returned or better yet, purchase the machine in a real store so this is possible. A story about that subject:
My son bought a Dell on line for $1,500 thinking it would be a super laptop for music. He could not get rid of the red spikes and therefore it was a turd. Dell could not solve his issue and declared it was not their problem as the laptop worked as prescribed for everything else. He had to keep it. He marched into Future Shop with a USB drive loaded with the DPCLAT tester and said he'll buy only the laptop that would run in the green. He said only a few passed the test and price was not the factor. He ended up with a $599 Acer. 

Wow SpaceAlf, you really don't seem to like Windows7 at all!  It is very good of you to alert me to all the possible configuration changes I will have to make, and you are right, there are a lot of them, with any Windows OS.  Even with XP I had to turn off a lot of annoying programs. There are some things in Windows that you can have access to that do hog CPU energy needlessly. Just the "look" of windows is one, all that crap can be turned off. As for programs and startup annoyances......I use CCleaner to configure the startup items, and I just disable everything but what I actually need. You mentioned Adobe, yes, they are one of those programs that eat up time at startup, so I just turn off anything that has Adobe in the startup list in CCleaner. (CCleaner is free btw, but I'm sure you know that already). I think I only have 5 programs that start when I turn on my PC, that's 5 out of about 17 total, the rest I turned off.
 
Also just found these helpful Win7 tips......
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-7/
http://www.wikihow.com/Optimize-Windows-7
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-speed-up-windows-7/
 
What I am going to do as well is keep the hard drive with windows XP in tact, mounted in my tower as is, just will be unplugged. I'll have another hard drive with Win7 on it, installed as well. If things get crazy with the HD with Win7, I'll just unplug it and plug into the HD with WinXP. Might take some doing, but I don't have any intention on erasing the HD with WinXP on it. Seems easier to just pop in another fresh HD and install Win7. 
 
Unfortunately (for now) I have to have one general purpose PC that I use for both recording and internet/home use. If I had another PC or Laptop, I'd just keep the XP PC off the internet and continue using it to record. It does have it's issues though as far as being kinda slow, especially graphics loading, my card is only 500MB RAM video, so it does choke now and then with bigger projects.
 
Lucky enough for me I have a friend who knows the ins and outs of computers, and he's also a recording musician like me, so he understands the pitfalls and interruptions.  If I really get into a jam with drivers, etc....I'll take it to him to have him clean it up. My PC technical knowledge only goes so far!
 
Cactus & Scook, I did notice that HD in the ASUS laptop is 5400RPM. Don't know why they waste their time putting a slower speed HD in a very fast machine like that, kinda dumb if you ask me!  I already had considered that I'd have to replace it with a 7200RPM drive if in fact I did buy it. So that is something that makes me hesitate to buy it, even though I know my friend can install the faster HD for me, just shouldn't need to do that imo, especially paying that kind of dough on a laptop, why not just put the fast drive in? Doh!
 
Btw, what is that DPCLAT latency test you guys keep mentioning?? Is it a program that can be downloaded to check latency, what exactly is it? 

Btw, what is that DPCLAT latency test you guys keep mentioning?? Is it a program that can be downloaded to check latency, 
 
Yes. 
I put the link in my last post. You might not have to do anything to your new computer, running this test will tell you. My wifes Lenovo Think pad T 420 runs in the low green with the wi fi on and I made absolutely no changes to it. Disabling start up applications only speeds up start up, it has no bearing on performance. that said, I still disable that stuff anyhow because it annoys me.  
 

Thanks, sorry I missed that link you posted. Just downloaded the program. I remember reading about that in this forum a long time ago, good to know they are still upgrading it for newer OSs. I'll file it away for when I get Win7 installed.