Laptop Recommendation

I decided not to hijack the other thread and just create my own. Plus it'll help get this forum off it's feet. I'll be going to college pursuing an Aerospace Engineering degree, so I imagine I'll need a pretty decent laptop, though nothing over the top. I'll still have access to my home computer on the weekends for major stuff.

I'm also big on PC gaming. Now I know good gaming laptops run upwards of $3,000 sometimes, but I don't want to play the newest and greatest games at the highest settings. I'll be playing games like perhaps Star Wars: Empire at War, and others released earlier.

My budget is around $1600 +/- . I've been looking at some Alienwares, specifically the Area-51® m5500 which I can configure like this:

Intel® Pentium® M 760 2.0GHz 2MB L2 Cache 533MHz FSB
Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Service Pack 2
Media Center Remote Control
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 533MHz - 2 x 512MB
60GB 5400 RPM ATA100
128MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go MXM 6600
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW Combo w/Software
+ Bag and small accessories

$1700 ($1600 AR)

I'm a little cautious of alienwares though, since I've heard some bad things, but this does seem like a decent setup. I would like Media Center XP and a remote on my laptop, though it's not required. Also, the lighter and smaller the better.

Can anyone recommend some other laptops?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The problem I've found with dells is that they are either too expensive (XPS Line) or I'm not able to include a decent video card on them. Most of which just have an integrated card.

I'll look into Asus though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Dell might fit my budget, but not my specs. Someone tell me why I can't customize an XPS laptop with an actual video card?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by quazi

Because you don't know how? Is a 7800 gtx/6800 ultra not an actual video card?

I'm not talking about the huge XPS models.

Quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't laptops use the system RAM for video RAM even in the presence of a video "card"? (At least, they seem to do so in the couple laptops I've seen with such cards.)

Not dedicated GPUs, no.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Unfortunately Samsung can'te sell laptops in the US. But they do have nice ones.

How ya doing, buddy?

No, they have a non-comp agreement with Dell.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Nice FLEX, though yeah, the X700 GPU doesn't support DirectX 9c. That's the only thing I see that stands out.

FELIPE NO