Buying first $1500ish laptop need advice thx!

I have built my last few dektops as I am an avid gamer but I am getting a present in the form of a laptop and this will be my first one. I will be using it for both work and gaming play.

1_What is your budget? - $1400-$1700.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? I like large screens and don't mind weight/size, long as It is still mobile.

3_What screen resolution do you want? I guess 1920 x 1080 is the "nice" standard.

5_How much battery life do you need? Most of the time I will be near a power source but I guess the more is better.

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. Yes I wanna game, I would prefer the laptop to have some of the better graphics capabilities possible. Are these cards like the NVIDIA GTX260M decent enough for gaming on say medium levels with current games? I know I wont be breakin any framerate tests but I do want quality.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Most Microsoft apps some web design stuff.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? 500GB is prolly enough.

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them. I was looking at the
ASUS G Series G72Gx-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000(2.00GHz) 17.3" 6GB Memory DDR2 800 1TB HDD 7200rpm BD Combo NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M - Retail
link - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220668

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? Well since I am spending a bit of coin on this thing I want it to be good, and last.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Std. CD/DVD/RW

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.
I usually like Asus cause they seem to know there gaming stuff.

13_What country do you live in? From Seattle, WA. USA.

That's it guys, thanks for any imput you have!

Cheers,

Ernie.

Take a look at these two laptops:

MSI GX740: http://www.xoticpc.com/gx740079us-order-p-2765.html

Asus G73: http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-g73jha2-order-p-2761.html

Both come with mobile i7 processors, HD 5870s and sell for around $1500.