I know it's fashionable to dump on Dell, but that's a good rig and a good deal. I have 5 and 6 year old Dell laptops that are battered but still working just fine. The GT 555M is comparable to the desktop GTS 450 and should be competent even in demanding games like TW2.

If it's possible to do so, I would buy it with one 4GB stick of RAM. Then you can get a second 4GB stick in the aftermarket, where the price is much better than Dell's.

Thanks for the confirmation. Dell has been decent for me in the past, also, so I'm not hesitating to choose that brand.

I was able to confirm that it has two hard drive bays, and also four RAM slots. And I went ahead and ordered it - that second HDD bay sealed the deal. The changes I made were to drop down to 4 GB of RAM, bumped up to the Blu-ray reader, and added built-in SB X-Fi. Coupons made it ~$1,240. Hopefully it'll ship early.

Thanks for the help, folks - I really appreciate it.

Looks like a good choice that Dell. Their stuff is a bit pricy, but top quality.
Being in a similar situation like you, I'm also searching for a interesting desktop replacement.
Got my eye on a Toshiba Qosmio X500-13R

Intel i7-740QM 1,73-2,93 GHz,
8192 MB RAM,
18,4" 1920x1080 screen,
2x 500 GB,
NVIDIA GTX 460M / 1,5GB,
Blu-ray RW,
1x 10/100/1000 Ethernet,
Bluetooth,
802.11b/g/n,
HDMI 1

Asus has put out a number of laptops with problems, (they actually don't make mine anymore because of this), but they have excellent customer service.

The Asus and Qosmio both look quite nice.

In the end, it came down to price and it was tough to justify more than around $1,300 US. That made it difficult to meet the screen requirements (17" full HD+) and also get a GTX-level GPU. USB 3.0 is a must-have for my future needs and that ruled out a whoooole lot of units. I had to compromise on the GPU though I don't think it'll be a big problem. With the GOGs, my ancient 7800 Go was doing the job just fine. 'Til it died, that is. ; ) So while the 555M GT isn't exactly top-o-the-line, it should be fine for how I play.

The main problem with Dell is that most folks buy commodity hardware. I remember the one I had was lacking a temperature sensor. But, I don't personally think that it's fair to blame Dell for that, I think that most commodity hardware is going to be like that. And even as commodity hardware that particular computer lasted me for about 4 years without having to upgrade the internals. I think the other one of similar vintage was similarly resilient.

I've heard that one is often times better off going with their business line, although probably not in this case as I doubt that the business line is going to be good for gaming.

For what it's worth, the configs and prices are the same between the business and home model XPS 17 I was looking at, right down to the warranty options. However, I know that's not always the case and maybe the XPS line is an exception. For this purchase I went with the Home side because of the three coupons; purchasing through the Business portal was going to cost several hundred more for an identical unit. That said, I've heard in the past that Business gets different tech support but I'm not certain that's the case any longer. Hopefully that issue won't come up.

Which leads to some advice if shopping Dell:

- always look for coupon codes. This model would not have been competitive without coupon discounts. When searching, use something like dell coupon <model line>. One site I used even showed the cheapest way to get a variety of options by using specific featured configs to start from. Edit: For example, "If you want these options at the lowest price, then start with the model on the left that cost $899". Pretty handy guide. www.logicbuy.com was the site.

- try to make the same configuration using different baseline links, since some featured units will have discounts on options that can make a more expensive pre-configured unit cost less than a cheaper config that you customize to match the higher-priced one. For example, I was led to a page with 4 different sample configs of the same model. Using different base configs led to different prices for the same options. The coupon site helped out with this, showing which pre-made config worked best for a certain set of upgrades.

- try configs from both the Home and Business portals, and make sure you're using the coupons within the correct portal.

Got a G60J... I wish I had purchased something else. After less than two years, already had to replace a defective battery and a defective power supply adapter. Support totally unhelpful in the first instance. Didn't even try getting any help the second time. The factory battery had a very short battery life. Ironically the replacement is far better.

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook that I use for GOG gaming and software development with a dual Vista/Ubuntu installation.

It's been remarkably stable so far (2 years) and I've carried it around quite a bit.

Back when I got it, a friend who works in the computer retail business told me they last a very long time as far as laptops go.

The graphic card is not great (its one of those cards that use the main memory), but it ran everything I bought on GOG so far.

Mini resurrection.

It (Dell XPS 17) arrived a few weeks back and I've had time to mess with it a bit. First off, the scheduled ETA was a major hedge on Dell's part. It actually came in almost a week earlier than they originally said it would. Both good and bad to this: the ETA might scare customers off if they need a machine sooner, but it's a bit of a boon for those who can wait for a new rig.

Some early impressions, in case anyone cares:

- adding in the second hard drive (taken from the dead laptop) was a snap. It really made the whole file swap process, well, I won't call it exactly quick and easy, but it was quicker and easier than it would have been otherwise. Really glad I chose the machine with that second drive bay.
- boot-up is somewhat slower than I expected, though it seems to be faster now that all of the current Windows updates are finished.
- There was surprisingly little crapware installed; just the usual anti-virus stuff that I don't want. Based on others' positive comments, I'm running MS Security Essentials.
- Win7 has some quirks that will take a while to get used to. XP it ain't, that's for sure.
- So far, compatibility with GOGs is okay. I've only tried three titles but they're all DOSBOX games and I haven't had much trouble except some random crashes in one title. Don't know if that's the title itself or the new rig, since I bought the game after the laptop arrived.
- I'm struggling a bit with the chiclet-style keyboard. The feel is okay but I'm making a lot more typing errors than I used to with the old one. Nice having a numpad to the right, though.
- The old keyboard had a bit of separation between groups of four F-keys. This made it easier to instinctively find them. The arrow keys were also larger on the old laptop so it's now tougher to use them on games and apps where it's otherwise handy to do so. And I'm thinking I should have taken the option of the backlit keyboard, since I often play in low-light. Maybe that's an easy upgrade down the road.
- Performance seems good. Tried the Stalker: COP benchmark and I think it was getting something like 40 fps average. Not bad for a laptop running a second-tier GPU. Also tried running, umm, 3DMark I think it was, but it would only use the onboard GPU - it wouldn't automatically switch over to the discrete GPU using the Optimus technology. There's a way to force either/or but it didn't work with that benchmark. No biggie - GOGs aren't that demanding and that's pretty much all I play. FWIW, I did have to force it for the Stalker benchmark; it was otherwise getting around 6-8 fps.
- The upgraded battery extends from the flush underside of the chassis by about 20mm / 3/4 inch. It won't be great for putting it in my bag but it probably is quite helpful for cooling, allowing for improved airflow underneath the unit.
- Not that I use the trackpad, but if you're one that normally does, I gotta say that thing is quite large.
- The chassis feels a much more solid than the old Inspiron E1705 I used to run. I don't feel the same flex as the old one and maybe that will help with longevity as the internals aren't tweaked nearly as much.
- The screen looks nice. This one has a semi-matte finish and the lack of glare is a nice change from before. Not that I had big problems with glare on the old one, but still, it's a noticeable improvement in that regard. It is also handling the old resolutions of GOGs with no problems whatsoever. Interpolation isn't killing image quality like it would maybe 5 years ago.

LOL - just noticed I've had the brightness set at about half, and it still looked good.

- The built-in JBL speakers actually sound pretty decent, all things considered. This might be helped by the battery lifting the ass-end off the desktop. With my old Sennheisers plugged in, no complaints whatsoever.

So I'm happy with my new Dell thus far. It hasn't missed a beat, no dead pixels that I can find, runs quickly, boots faster after updates, that second drive bay was a big plus, and I'm getting the hang of the interface changes from Win7. I know it'll be a while before my hands are trained on the new keyboard but that will come eventually; having the numpad is a fair trade-off for that.

Again, thanks to all for the input.

Just some basic stuff... Install MSE and don't bother anymore with other AVs. Install your games in C:\Games or something similar, outside of PF!

I too have a G73 and will echo the comments that the thing is a beast, both in size and performance.

I highly recommend one, the price for performance ratio is easily the best in the desktop replacement category.

Also, unless its changed, the Asus warranty is 3 years support and 1 year accidental damage