I'll be off to Australia for a year which will involve a lot of travelling, so I want a nice portable laptop with a dedicated gfx card.
Nice. I bought my self a ridiculously expensive Alienware "Desktop Replacement" gaming laptop about a year and a half ago, just before moving to NZ.My advice is "don't".
I recently bought a cheap-ass Dell laptop for company work, and it wipes the floor with the Alienware in almost every aspect, particularly noise levels. (The Alienware had *seven* fans, and once they got even the slightest bit dusty [and with seven fans creating a perpetual vacuum underneath your laptop, that takes maybe 3 weeks] the build-in descent quality speakers, where no longer able to drown out the fan noise, even when playing Tenacious D at full volume). It also ran so hot, it could potentially give you a first degree burn.
Anyone have any experience with these, or any other suggestions?
I have a friend who bought an XPS system once. Wasn't terribly impressed with it and sol it after 8 months.I recommend you just buy a cheap ass laptop, just powerful enough to run "last gen" games. That way at least you won't be kicking yourself 18 months later when you can get a 3 times as powerful laptop, for 1/3 the price.