Gaming Laptop Questions (Newbie)

Hi all, I just found my way here from a lifehacker article about graphics cards, so I'm new to the forum, but I am in the market for a new laptop. My family has always bought major label pcs, particularly HPs, but I would like my next one to be gaming-geared.

I recently was going to buy this Gateway http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspag [...] 8043606827 but I notice that Best Buy got in a new series of laptops and it seems overpriced now.

Out of their new crop I thought http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspag [...] 8092150740 looked pretty good, but in reading the customer reviews I see there is an issue with the bios powering down the comp at only 82c. So I next considered it's cousin http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspag [...] merreviews which only has two reviews, and reviews on the other Asus comp suggested this one might have the same problem.

In any case I don't run particularly heavy FPS or anything like that, but I play World of Warcraft and a few other games which I forsee getting more graphics intensive, and I would like the laptop to have some staying power when new games come out. The HP I have now I've been using for 5 years (The graphics card, a Nvidia GEForce4 448 Go, is so old that I can't find a benchmark to compare it to any other card anywhere ).

1_What is your budget? $1000-$1300, can go up to $1500 if you can really sell me on it's longevity.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? I'd prefer a 17". Actually I find an extended keypad to be kind of important but I assume all gaming laptops have that?

3_What screen resolution do you want? This isn't make or break for me.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? If this question is going to weight that doesn't matter. It would be closer to desktop replacement I guess.

5_How much battery life do you need? I assume anything can go an hour, that would be fine. More would be nicer of course, but this isn't a big deal.

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)? The most important thing is that it remain usable for game playing years from now, since I only by a comp every 4-5yrs, so I guess it would have to be high-end for now to be competitive later. If I can fit it in my price range it would be nice to play World of Warcraft on all of it's highest settings.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing, surfing the web, playing music, watching movies, Etc.).

Well to the extent some laptops include DVD writers that would be a big plus. I mostly use it for web surfing, word processing, video watching and storage, but I have an external terabyte drive so storage is not a big issue. I have occassionally created movies with Windows Movie Maker for presentations (I'm a lawyer) but certainly nothing intensive outside of gaming. I listen to music like everyone else, but I'm not a musician or anything, I don't need awesome speakers or anything.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? Again not a big issue since I have an external drive, but I would think over 350 or so.

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them. As I said my family has always bought the big-name manufacturers. I realize I will have to move away from that for gaming rigs, but I would prefer to keep it with a big supplier if possible, which is why I posted those best buy links. It is not make-or-break though. The other thing is that I am used to the more-general apps. I like a lot of people don't use Microsoft Word but an open-source clone (the name escapes me) but I can't get into it, so to the extent that the inclusion of things like microsoft office or word are on there that is a price savings for me.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? This is key for me, the longer the better. If it costs a few hundred more to get another few years I will take it.

11_If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them. Think I've covered it all above.

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. Again, covered above.

13_What country do you live in? US

For your budget, you may take a look of these two:

MSI GT725-074US , ASUS G71GX

I would say go for the Asus G71GX or g51GX the new GTX260 is amazing GPU humm if only i had the money!