choosing a laptop

What budget do you have? IMHO, there are many other vendors that offer systems better suited to the desires of enthusiasts....at better prices. For instance, Sager Notebook Computer who are now selling the configurable NP9260, which is excellent for gaming duty. Starting at about $2500 it comes with the most powerful graphics currently availble for the mobile market, the nVidia 7950GTX 512MB. They also have a minimum of "bloatware", which is a nice difference from the Dells, HPs, and Gateways you mention.

I just configured a Dell XPS M1710 to the minimum Sager configuration, and it came to almost $3000. And while the Dell's build quality is probably slightly better, IMHO it's not worth a $500 premium.

With the following specs, the Dell was almost $5000:
2.33GHz Core2 Duo
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
200GB 7200RPM HDD
nVidia 7950GTX video card
Vista Ultimate x64
1yr warranty

For only $4500, you could get this, from Sager:
2.66GHz Core2 Duo
4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
x3 200GB 7200RPM HDD (yes THREE!!!)
x2 nVidia 7950GTX video card (yes TWO!!)
Vista Ultimate x64
3yr warranty

PC World ranks laptops in three categories: power, all-purpose, and ultraportable.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id, [...] ticle.html

PC World doesn't know squat! They rank the best gaming laptop on the market being the Asus G2P-7R009C. It has an ATI Mobility Radeon x1700 which would huff and puff with any modern game :!:

I second this opinion! PCWorld's ranks are terribly outdated, and crap! Don't even look at those rankings!

We need to know a budget to tell you which would be best suited for you!