Buyers Guide

I live in Africa and want to import a laptop urgently. Ive done a fair bit of looking but want to make sure I make the right choice. Can I have peoples thoughts on the best laptop to get. My budget before shipping is around the 2,000.00 US Dollar mark, but could pay more if there is something really worth it. I am a software developer who will be staring at code most of the day hence screen is most important, second in priority is some gaming so needs to have a decent 3d card in it, but nothing overly special (dual 280M ). Here are my minimum specs, anything above is cool with me.

Screen: 17" WUXGA (1920 * 1200) - can live with 1680 if need be.
Ram: 4gig minimum
Graphics: Anything that can play current title on high (ish) but not necessarily ultra. So a 260M upwards.
Windows 7 upgradeable

Anything that can satify those criteria im sure will cover everything else...

With all my looking around I havent seen anything thats really grabbed my interest. At this point a custom built Alienware with Raid etc coming in at about 2200 seems like a good option. Can anyone recommend some laptops to check out?

Thanks for the links. I notice they have a Sager NP9280

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np928 [...] -2577.html

this has a Intel Core i7 Quad (Nehalem) 920 2.66GHz 8MB Cache 130W cpu. This is obviously a desktop board / processor. How badly is this going to affect:
- power consumption (obviously its ALOT more when its under load, but can it still run lean when just puttering around in windows, on battery in windows under minimal load what is the battery life like),
- Heat (it gets to 45 degrees Celsius here so don't want it overheating)
- durability (are they likely to break easier than a mobile board).

Does anyone have any experience with this machine, am I better off playing it safe and going for a mobile i7 eg Intel® Core™ i7-720QM, 1.60-2.80GHz, (45nm, 6MB L3 cache). And how much slower is the mobile likely to be...

Thanks in advance
Matt