Looking for suggestions on a laptop

[ZForce]

I've been wanting a laptop for a long time, and I'm finally in the position where I can comfortably afford to buy myself one. Basically I'm looking at something with the following

Decent sized harddrive (preferably 100GB or more)
1GB of RAM (equivalent to what I have on my current PC)
decent dedicated graphics card

Ideally I'd like to spend no more than $1500, but I want something roughly equivalent to my home PC that I can play games and whatnot on when I'm away

The most likely candidate for where I go is a local PC shop near where I live. I've also looked at a couple custom sites (Dell always seems to have a deal of some sort going on and I also saw www.aeoncraft.com which looks solid and I can get what I'm looking for for about $1300 from them. Alienware seems too expensive for my budget)

I'd prefer not buying an off the shelf model (from BB, CUSA, etc) Does anyone have suggestions on good brand names or other tips? Any help is appreciated :)

[SOSTrooper]

Depending on the games that you play, but having a better video card in a laptop means you'll have to sacrifice portability. High end laptop video cards (comparitive to upper mid range desktop video cards) such as Go 7900 are only available on 17" laptops, which are usually 8+ lbs. Dell has a E1705 model and you can often find deals if you look at Slickdeals.net where you can easily get it with the Go 7900 for under $1500. If you want portability and gaming, then Asus has a 15.4" with X1600 which does decent gaming. You can configure the Asus laptop from ibuypower.com or cyberpowerpc.com. They're also under you $1500 range with desired components. There are many manufacturers that makes laptop with a good dedicated video card, but one thing for sure is I wouldn't settle below a X1600 or Go 7600.

Edit: Looking at your Aeoncraft link, the laptop you selected is a Asus laptop rebranded, which is also the same as many custom your own laptop sites carry. It's not a bad deal for $1300.

[tehweezner]

yeah just make sure it won't be too heavy/bulky. the portability factor is pretty important in the long run, also battery life.