1. Dell XPS M1730

Ah, the customizability of Dell. There seems to be no limit to what you can do with the 17" (1920x1200 standard) M1730, and the price can range dramatically. We selected a review model which sported an Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz (which Dell said was overclockable to 3.4GHz, joy) and 4GB DDR2 RAM. For storage we got dual 320GB 7200RPM HDDs, and for graphics we chose dual nVidia GeForce 8700M GT 512MB GPUs. The M1730 is graced with a generous sampling of ports, including 4USB, DVI, HDMI, FireWire, S-video and ExpressCard, and sports the standard Bluetooth/WiFi and webcam. You can also get Blu-ray and even WWAN! While many laptops of this size and strength give up on battery life, Dell has opted for a 9-cell battery, giving the notebook half a chance at a life away from home. Of course, such a huge battery has its side effects, and the 10.6lb weight makes it very unlikely you'll choose to travel much with it, battery life or no battery life. If you're not convinced, we'd like to next inform you that it's about 2" thick, or nearly as thick as 3 MacBook Airs. Nevertheless, if you can get over the weight issue and see the computer for what it really is on the inside, you will see a premium computer. The price on Dell's website lists it at $2999 for this specification (reduced from $3648), and you'll be hard pressed to find a more powerful notebook anywhere for that price...............link