Looking for a Laptop - Guidance needed!

1_What is your budget?
Under $1000.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Something not enormous but at the same time not an ultra-portable. Something in the middle of the spectrum.

3_What screen resolution do you want?
I've always used 1280x1024 and that seems pretty comfortable. Nothing smaller than that.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
I'm not sure why a portable laptop can't serve as a desktop replacement, to be completely honest. Anyways, I need this laptop for use both at home and on the road.

5_How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible, really.

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
I likely won't play too many games. But if I do I would like to play at least on Medium.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_editing , surfing the web, playing music, watching movies, Etc.)
This is the most important point: I will be using this laptop in the future for CAD work (e.g. SolidWorks). This, I understand, is very CPU and GPU intensive.
Please see this link for important information about graphics cards and SolidWorks performance:
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/se [...] sting.html

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
As much as possible.

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
N/A

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
This is the second-most important point: I hope that this laptop will last for at least 4 years with very solid performance.
11_If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them.

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
N/A.

13_What country do you live in?
Canada.


Other notes:
-Windows XP or Windows Vista needed
-you be the judge on RAM, since I've been out of the computer scene for a while. All I know is that 2GB of RAM is probably the ballpark figure.
-I'll be carrying the laptop around a lot. So I don't want a heavy-weight
-I want to have the choice of plugging in an external monitor
-I'm pretty sure that I'll need a dedicated GPU. I want to have the choice of upgrading my card later if needed. This may force me to raise my budget.

Thank you!

Thank you for all your help.