Gaming Laptop advice

I'm going to buy myself a gaming laptop after christmas this year, so I'm starting to look into hardware now. I'd love your advice!

1_What is your budget?

$1000-2000. My computer isn't about a pissing contest with other gamers though - I just want something at the peak of the value curve, and I think that's in this price range.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Not important to me. I travel all the time for work (I spend about a month at a time in one place), and I've been bringing my desktop AND 15" laptop with me. So anything's better than that. Probably <17"

3_What screen resolution do you want?
I would like 1080p, but I'm not dead set on it. I only have a handful of HD movies, so it's not a big deal.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Gaming.

5_How much battery life do you need?
Not particularly a factor, though 3 hrs would be nice.

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)?
That's a big YES. At the moment I play counterstrike:source, halflife 2 episodes, left 4 dead, and team fortress 2... but there's no telling where my fancy will take me next. My taste is mostly FPS. Highest settings would be fantastic, but again it's not about a pissing contest for me. I just think highest settings now means that I'll still be able to play games with this system in a few years.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Photo editing, audio editing, watching movies.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
Not an issue - I have two external terabyte drives I carry around with me.

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

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 years +

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not important. The only time I use my existing DVD drive is to reinstall. I guess if I have a 1080p screen I would want a blu-ray drive... but again I don't really care about that.

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.
No preference. Generally I like brands that use major name parts, because I do a lot of work with open source. .

13_What country do you live in?
France, but I travel all over the western world. I'm in the US at least once every 3 or 4 months.

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.


EDIT: I've been looking at the popular Asus G60VX-RBBX05
Looks pretty slick - C2D 2.1ghz, GTX 260M, 4gb RAM, 7200RPM drive, all for $1000. The big downside is the screen resolution: only 1366x768. But the price is very encouraging!

Those look awesome! Maybe I should wait it out so I can get an i7 with a 1333mhz bus in the same price range? It can't be long before those systems come below $1500...

Yeah i forgot the 8690 that's an excellent notebook