I don't know much about laptops, let's get that out of the way. I'm looking to buy a computer primarily for graphics-heavy gaming and I need the laptop for portability because I travel a great deal.

So here's my quandary:

I found the HP Pavilion dv9820us at Buy the HP Pavilion dv9820us 17" Widescreen Entertainment Laptop and other Laptop computers at circuitcity.com for a decent price with Circuit City. The 3gb of RAM looked mighty promising, but it has a NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M graphics card and I've heard its - to be blunt - crap for gaming.

Take into account that my budget for buying the laptop is about $2,600.

So I have a few questions. Is it possible to upgrade the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M in the dv9820us? I've heard that with some laptops it's not possible to upgrade at all. If that's the case, is it worth getting the dv9820us because of the price alone?

Also, if the dv9820us just isn't worth it, is there a gaming laptop you can recommend?

If it helps, I generally play MMO's and FPS's.

See Top 5 Gaming Laptops - Computer Shopper. Also Alienware caters to gaming systems.

Generally, the graphics chipsets used on laptop motherboards are part of a chipset package for the whole system and not upgradeable, and they tend to use system memory instead of having dedicated video memory.

I really can't imagine gaming on a laptop as I update my graphics card every 1-2 years to keep up with the games. What do you do with a laptop if you aren't made of money? Perhaps a small form factor desktop system that you can stick a full fledged graphics adapter in would suffice?

I have an older Dell XPS M1710 and it is an awesome gamer.
Core 2 2Ghz
2 Gb RAM
100 Gb HDD
but best of all
Geforce 7950 GTX with 512 Mb.

here are not many current games that won't run at 1920X1200 with everything turned on.

You don't want a laptop for gaming. Laptops nowadays don't get that great battery life.. Around 2 or 3 hours. A gaming laptop meant for the high-end (read: Crysis) games will last a half an hour at the most off the charger. They're also very heavy and run very hot. The ability to upgrade is pretty much nonexistent. Not really great in the way of portability and a half an hour isn't enough to get your game on, in my opinion.

Sorry to burst the bubble, but if you want to do high-end gaming, stick with a desktop. You're not going to get much for the money if you buy a laptop for your gaming needs. You won't get the portability, you won't get the battery life, your gaming laptop will be pretty much useless unless you take the charger everywhere with you.

If you absolutely are interested in getting a gaming laptop, you're going to be looking at spending more than $2,600. Alienware's and Dell's XPS gaming notebooks are in the neighborhood of $3,500 to $4,000, and with half that amount of money you can get a high-end gaming desktop.

Here's what it boils down to: If you want portability, get a regular laptop. If you want gaming, get a desktop. If you absolutely want that gaming laptop, you're going to have to save up some more.

Jim, completely agree with the desktop route.
Who plays games on a laptop on battery power!!
Utter madness as they step down their speed.
Admittedly a gaming laptop does make LAN parties a lot easier as all you really need is power ;)

I know the desktop is the better route, but I am almost never home. And I can't see toting around a desktop with me as a viable option. So it's either a laptop or nothing. Thank you for your help, everyone.