joker8baller Wrote:I'm def. Interested in the 15inch version  at that price point.

I'm also looking at the custom boutique shops such as sager  8150p.

I dislike the performance, battery life, and performance of the MacBook pros and I might still get that if I receive a 25% discount as I do want to keep my desktop as my main gaming pc.

it seems as that quad is the base for all gaming platforms out there though.

may i know what gaming are u talking about? are u talking about online gaming(like cs, dota, lol, etc) or offline gaming(like deus ex:HR, AC, etc)?
if u are talking about heavy gaming, i would say a big NO to macbook, as it was designed not for gaming...
I would go for ASUS like what barcode said, since ASUS is cheap and have decent specs...
sager could be a choice too, as i have np8150 myself...

if u try to look for laptops that have heavy specs for heavy gaming, u cant really look for the battery life, as the components of the laptop itself takes much energy compared to normal laptops for working in an office...

when i compared np8150 to m15x alienware, the specs of np8150 is a bit higher, while the price of a sager is cheaper for about $50 than alienware