New laptop buying thoughts - ~1500 gamer w/ 15.6" or smaller screen

[killersquirel11]

Hey all,

I'm looking at buying a new laptop to replace my current one (Acer Aspire 8930 w/ 18.4" screen and 9600M GT), since it is nearly four-years-old and having its set of interesting problems. Since I now own a desktop, I don't need such an obscenely-large screen.

Spoiler

So here's what I'm generally looking for:
1. What is your budget? ~$1500 (give or take a couple hundred either way)
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15" class or smaller
3. What screen resolution do you want? Full HD - 1080P for 15", smaller screens may be able to get by with fewer pixels.
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable, with an emphasis on awesomeness.
5. How much battery life do you need? With my other requirements, anything above 2 hours is doable.
6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? Yes, LoL being the most common. I'd like to be able to play new releases at medium or better settings for several years.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Media watching, programming, internet stuff.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. (see below)
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 4 years, at least
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? BluRay burner preferred
12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. I somewhat dislike Dell, Alienware, and Mac, although with the right convincing I could go with all but the latter. No real reasons, just me being contrary.
13. What country do you live in? USA
14. Other thoughts - Some of the work I do requires a fair amount of number crunching/multitasking, so I'd like to get an i7 if at all possible.

Anyways, I've been looking at some of the custom PC building sites like Sager and CyberPowerPC, as well as (of course) Newegg.
So far, here's what looked good to me:
Sager NP9130 - $1680 (pretty much the highest price I would be willing to pay)
Display: 15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080)
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 670MX GPU with 3GB GDDR5
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3740QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.70GHz)
OS: Genuine MS Windows® 8 64-Bit Edition
RAM: 12GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 X 4GB
HDD: 750GB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
mSATA SSD: Crucial 32GB M4 Series mSATA SSD - Preconfigured for Intel SRT
Optical Drive: 6X BD-R Blu-ray Burner/8X DVD±R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
WiFi Card: Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 802.11 A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Module
The CyberPowerPC XPLORER X6-9500 can be configured similarly for slightly more

My biggest question with that setup: Is $80 for a 32GB SRT SSD worth it?

Similar specs, 675M vs 670MX, read-only bluray, i7 3630 vs i7 3740, $1500. No SRT.
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152368

More portable, $1600, VAIO, 640M, i7 3520, 256GB SSD instead of 750GB HDD, no blu-ray:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127876

Does anyone here have any input they'd like to add?

Thanks in advance

 

[thomasf94]

Go with that sager, its your best bet, the 670 mx is definitely better than the 675m because the mx is the true kepler series with the new features.

I would buy that sager out of all of those, especially since my brother has it, and its a great laptop.

Btw, those newegg links don't work.