Entertainment/Gaming Laptop advice :)

[SAi646]

General Questions

1) What is your budget?
up to ~AU$2000

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
c. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
d. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator.
Australia

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
Nope, surprise me

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
Nope

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Word processing, internet browsing, multitasking, entertainment system(music/movies), gaming.


7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?
Mainly fps and rts: team fortress 2, starcraft 2, portal 2, etc.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
>5 hours

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
Online is okay

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Windows 7

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer?
Midrange Resolutions: WXGA+, HD+, 900p
Maximum Resolutions: WSXGA+, WUXGA, FHD, 1080p

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
Prefer glossy

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Nice addition but not a deciding factor

15) When are you buying this laptop?
Just whenever I think I can get the most for my dollar

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?
~ 3-4 years

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 640GB? Do you want a SSD drive?
>500gb... will consider an SSD depending on price.

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive?
DVD burner/Blu-ray
------------
Well, I'm currently looking at the XPS 15 laptop i7 2630QM, 8GB Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 750gb 7200rpm HD, 2GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M graphics with Optimus.
I'm open to any suggestions though, keep them coming
This is my first time really looking at buying a laptop so I don't know much about laptop specs, what's good for what I need, what to look out for, and thus I apologise for being unable to provide more detail on these aspects so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction .
Highly appreciated and thanks in advance.

Also.... I have friends travelling to the USA sometime soon, would it be better -price wise- to purchase a laptop from there? How does the warranty work for this? Thanks.

[Leoben]

How dead set on 5 hours battery life are you? For $2000 USD (~$AU1840) you can get much better graphics cards than the GT 540M. The trade off most of the time however is reduced batter life. Could you live with 3 hours battery life? 2 hours?

[edit1754]

The XPS 15 is one of the best multimedia laptops, and it's a good choice but I noticed your specs list was lacking one significant thing.

You must make sure you get the 1080p B+RGLED display upgrade. Forget all other upgrades until you've got that one on the list, then you can start figuring out what other upgrades fit into your budget.

The XPS 15's B+RGLED 1920x1080 is one of the best laptop screens currently available in terms of color reproduction, and it also gives you a lot more screen space to work with by making stuff onscreen a bit smaller.

The WLED 1366x768 screen is completely devoid of contrast and it's full of image grain. It's one of the worst 15.6" displays I've seen (and yes I've seen it). I wouldn't suggest putting any money towards a laptop with this kind of screen, especially a multimedia laptop, so I highly recommend the 1080p upgrade.

[SAi646]

@lightnica: what kind of graphics card could I get? the dell store only offers that for the XPS 15, which brand should I be looking at?
Overall, I guess what it comes down to is a balance, as long as games are playable on the GT 540M at a reasonable frame rate, it's good enough if it adds a few hours of battery life.

@edit1754: Ah thanks for your suggest I seem to have overlooked that option not thinking much of it, well noted.