i have to say my laptop plays HL2 fine with everying on high, except for Anti-aliasing which is on 2x and anisotropic filtering is also on 2x, i get a very playable frame rate and it looks great, my laptop cost £1399 but i think u can get it for £1199 now, it also plays far cry with everything on full fine. i am also at uni thats why i got one becuase i use it in the libary and there is campus wide wi-fi which i cool. i will admit a desktop would be much quicker but u cant take it every where u go! also with mxm module u can upgrade the grx card at a later date. but i would wait till the last posible min before u buy one cos new ones come out all the time. also u yanks pay a lot less for ur hardware then us brits!!