is this good enough to run Crysis at a respectable framerate?

i dunno, #1, but i really wish it had a br drive. i'd so pulled the trigger by now. sure, i could buy one and swap out the drives, but would rather have it come with it so there'd be a reasonable expectation for it to work!

Same here, #2. Last year, HP put in free BR upgrade once in a while. Now they don't even have that option.

An HP for $1000, yeah right.

Don't expect to game very long on the included battery, IMO on a notebook this size and with discrete video there is no excuse to not include a higher capacity battery pack. Sure it seems marginally ok when brand new, but it's only brand new that one moment and then the moment's gone.

get asus G73JH-A1 ms cashback is now 10% on flebay... haha

This laptop has wings and will fly.

Screw HP, these fuc*ing monkeys charged my card for one of these on Jan 19, delayed the shipping twice and i still don't have it. good business practices.

I'm having the same experience as #8. I ordered mine on the 16th of January. At first they estimated ship date of 2/1. That came and went, and I received a $50 gift card for the delay. Then, I got a 2nd notice of delay...this time telling me it'd ship on the 9th of Feb. This notice came with a %10 discount on the total amount. I'm not in a huge rush, so I didn't cancel...however, without the discounts, I almost certainly would have. FWIW, I got the same deal above but configured slightly different...640GB (2x320GB), 8GB RAM...

#2: Yes, plays Crisis like a charm. And battery life with the 8 cell is amazinly long (ok, not necessarily during gameing, but in general use).
Got this machine before xmas for my son and he's happy as a clam with it.

#9: Yes, same delay here, but I figured it was due to the xmas rush and good deal at that time...but it arrived as promised...etc.

Machine is great, fast and...
paid 899 for it with 4 GB and Blueray drive...