I too was in the exact same position looking for a laptop and before I decided on building a desktop I planned on getting that very computer (ASUS G46VW), from the research I did on it it seemed like an excellent laptop, especially for the price, and the few faults I found were mostly small/user issues instead of any major problems. They even have it on display in the store if you want to try it out (at least at the store by me.
On the good side from what I heard it has great cooling and I think the graphics card will be enough to play "nothing crazy". It felt fairly solid, the only parts that had any flex at all were areas where it probably would not be as much of an issue. There are more pros, but you can do a bit of research to find that one out.
In terms of cons/comments/things you should be aware of:
You mentioned you wanted an i7, Best Buy sells it with an i5. Do you do anything that specifically needs the i7, like video editing or something? Because i think the i5 is fine for games.
the hard drive best buy sells with it is a 5400 RPM HDD, which many consider slow, although i would argue its more personal preference, the laptop should still run fine
the screen is, i believe, 1366x768 instead of 1600x900. A lot of people were annoyed with that, personally I didnt really care.
the laptop has an msata slot (which may or may not interest you) but it is not designed to fit full sized msata drives without resorting to some creative solutions (from what ive heard)
which leads me to my next point (dont read if you dont plan to ever upgrade/change parts):
if you dont like what's in the laptop (like the hard drive) and want to upgrade it, it's a pain to do so. You apparently have to take the whole keyboard off just to get in at the parts (aside from ram, which has a much easier spot at the back). You can get Best Buy to do this either with you Geek Squad warranty, or by paying them $50 to do it (im not sure if cheaper places would void any warranty you have as they arent best buy). Keep in mind that the entire system will be warrantied, but THAT PART will not be covered by the 1 year warranty that comes with the computer. The best option I found if I wanted different specs from Best Buy is to order from a site called HIDevolution, which allows you to do a fair bit of customization. But its pricey and ive heard that it takes a while to get the system and customer service after they get your money is sometimes a bit dodgy
To sum up: It seemed like a great computer as I was researching it. It is last year's model, but definitely seems like a good deal and I would recommend considering it. You can even go see it in Best Buy (if they still have it sitting out). I decided i wanted to try to build a desktop because I thought it would be a better value for me, but if i was going to get a laptop i would probably be getting that one
/www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+14%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/7674066.p?id=1218858193065&skuId=7674066#tab=overview
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