I have a gaming laptop and the best advice I can give you is to buy a second battery, preferrably a 12 cell (Even if they only come with the 'lump' for your model). I see mentioned prominently in reviews of your machine that battery life is 'so-so' (PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html) or 'short' which means gaming on 8 cell battery power is probably going to run you around 90 minutes at the most.

Also get an upgrade to that drive. 4200 rpm is simply not acceptable.

And don't talk to me about heavy. I have the notorious (...ly unreliable and overweight) Alienware 7700 from 2+ years ago. A good gaming laptop is gonna be fairly heavy, just remember it's lighter than carrying your desktop rig. If possible I'd strongly recommend getting an up close and personal look at the display. What one person rates as acceptable for a gaming display another may find annoying to the point of unuseability. My AW 17" is, IMHO, dark and ugly with poor options, but acceptable on performance grounds.

As a further FYI, I recommend against Alienware (Now owned by Dell). There's a class action lawsuit in progress over the machine I have now, and over a hundred complaints with the BBB.

GL, other than the battery and the HD it looks like a sweet ride.