Looking for performance laptop, budget ~$1000

[flamingspinach]

I'm looking for a new laptop, and have a budget of $1000 US. Currently I have an HP business notebook, the nw8240, which I really like - my only complaint being that it runs rather hot.

I'm looking for something similar in functionality as a replacement, and I've sort of been out of the loop for a few years, so...

What I'm looking for:
[*]strong performance (mostly just general multitasking, though a graphics subsystem capable of running fairly recent games would certainly be nice)
[*]enough memory (though that's probably upgradeable on any laptop)
[*]preferably a 16:10 screen, 1680x1050 at least; would also consider 16:9
[*]solid design (sensible keyboard/trackpad functionality, sturdy construction)
[*]Intel processor

What I don't care so much about:
[*]manufacturer (no real loyalty to HP here)
[*]price, as long as it's under $1000
[*]storage space (I have an external drive)
[*]the "latest models" (if I can find something older that measures up and is cheap, excellent)
[*]operating system (I can probably obtain that separately if necessary)

So, can anyone recommend anything for me? By the way, how does integrated graphics measure up these days? Are they still doing the "use system RAM as VRAM" thing? Are modern games playable on integrated graphics? Three years ago, I heard murmurs about driver troubles with integrated graphics, too...

Thanks to anyone who can help!

 

[IlllI]

integrated graphics is ass. good for 2d software apps and minesweeper type stuff

 

[flamingspinach]

That bad? :/ I wouldn't even be able to play games that were high-end a couple or three years ago?

 

[TheStu]

I am not positive how something like the 9400m does in real world test in Windows, but I know that when I got my MacBook 3 years ago, it could hardly run Half Life 2 at 800*600 in Windows, and that was a 2-3 year old game at that point. Now that was intel integrated, and was a while ago, but you might want to look into some benchmarks.

However, at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is that integrated is there for battery life and basic stuff. It will give you enough chops to say... decode 1080p video, and GPU accelerate some stuff, but not really there for games.

 

[El Guaraguao]

gateway FX p7805u is win.