I asked this on a number of forums so I decided to throw it here as well; here goes!
Until recently I was really looking forward to buying a Dell Studio 15 with a Intel Core i7-720QM but as faith has it Dell UK decided they won't use that processor on the Studio line and have it exclusively on it's XPS series.
My question now is how does the i5-520M compare to the i7-720QM? The system will be a desktop replacement so battery life is not that important but it will have to do some medium wight gaming (think Team Fortress 2 and Source engine powered games mostly).
To better exemplify what I mean: the current Studio 15 laptop would have the following configuration:
Processor - Intel Core i5-520M (2.4GHz, 4 Threads, turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz, 3MB cache)
Memory - 8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x4096]
Hard drive - 500GB (5400RPM) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Graphics card - 512MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4570 Graphics Card
LCD - 15.6in Widescreen Full High Definition (1920 x 1080) WLED with TrueLife
This whole config will cost me at this point £949.00. Before the removal of the i7 from this line, the price for this exact same hardware only with that processor would of been around £989.
You may wonder why buy so much RAM and that is a valid question; this will be my primary PC for about 3-4 years and I'd like to invest as little in it after buying as possible (so I'd love to max out the RAM now) and also, Source games are mostly processor and RAM intensive rather than video card.
The Studio XPS 16 would cost £1,249.00 (£1,549.00 with 8GB of RAM) and have the following config:
Processor - Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 720QM (1.60Ghz, 6MB cache)
Memory - 4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048] (Add another £300 for 8GB)
Hard drive - 500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive
Graphics card - 1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics card
LCD - Black Leather back cover : 16" (inch) Truelife 1080p Full HD RGBLED Edge to Edge Display
Yes, it has a nicer video card and processor but I'm not so excited about the price difference.
I won't buy the XPS, that I am sure of; now I come here hoping for (a) suggestions regarding an alternative to the Studio 15 at a maximum price of £1000 and (b) if I should just go ahead and buy the Studio 15.
And please no Apple recommendations :)

A mate of mine has had a Studio 17 for a while with a Core 2 Duo cpu and he can run Burnout Paradise on medium-high detail with no problems so i don't see why that setup wouldn't work well.
On the otherside if your not too bothered about refurbished laptops then check this site
EDIT: And i realise that i didnt really answer your question :P

I'm saving up for this bad boy:-
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/654/861/-/13346263/Acer-Aspire-5740G-434G50BI-Core-i5-430M-2-26GHz-4GB-500GB-Blu-ray-BD-ROM-Combo-15-6-Windows-7-Home-Premium-64-Bit-Laptop-Notebook-/Product.html?searchtype=genre
Similar in spec to what you've suggested already bar the ram being limited to 4GB but I'm sure an upgrade down the line would be possible as I've not come across a laptop that doesn't allow for easy RAM access/tinkering.
Source games are *very* system friendly and extremely scalable, that system you've highlighted and the one I have suggested will utterly annhilate 'Source' tech games, heck I've a 4 year old PC that can max out all of the Source games easily.
Overall though I'd definitely shop around, unless you've used Dell before and are more than happy to stick with them that is.
I can recommend the following websites as being well regarded (from friends and reviews) when it comes to both PC's and laptop PC's. :)
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/
http://www.rockdirect.com/
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
I hope that was a bit helpful at any rate!! :P
EDIT:- Only look at rockdirect if you sneeze money ¬_¬

I am running a Core2Duo Dell laptop right now and it's more than OK but the opportunity has been presented to upgrade (and I can't go with a desktop unfortunately) and I intend to make the most out of it.
Not a fan of Acers as all the people I've spoken to said they have shitty build quality; and I tend to agree after playing with one for a couple of hours.
That Acer has a better graphics card but I don't know the resolution of the screen and that matters a lot.
As for the rest of your post, thanks for the links!

Do you need to be looking at pre-built machines? Only that's kind of overpriced. Especially when neither the GPU or CPU is exactly top of the line. And a 16" monitor also seems lacking given the price tag.

Yup, that may be the case but the term 'beggars cannot be choosers' is very apt when stuck in my situation, which is a stringent studenty budget (that's being stretched by that Acer's price point) to move on from a AMD64 Mobile 789mhz, 512mb RAM and an Ati Xpress 200m ;__;
Have any links to better alternatives Navagon? I'd tend to agree with what you're saying but it's hard to find alternatives, I find. ;)
EDIT:- In case you hadn't have guessed I'm also looking to upgrade and I just can't find any other deals that better or come close to that Acer on Play.com
'tis mightily annoying.
www.laptopsdirect.co.uk is worth a gander but it's not all that exciting to be honest.

I'm mostly looking at pre-built machines because this will need to be easily and more importantly fast serviceable in case of hardware failure and this needs to be done not only in the UK (this is why I love Dell, I've got my rig repaired both here and back home without a hassle while under warranty).
That and superior build quality as they have better engineering teams to think about problems such as heat-hotspots and general issues regarding driver integration and OS support.
But by all means, go ahead and give me links.
Problem I found with the links you gave me is that their higher-end system come with a 17inch screen at minimum and I'm really looking for a 15 inch one with a high resolution (preferably 1900x1080).

This won't answer your question at all, so feel free to ignore it.
But so far I'm really happy with the studio 17 i bought last year. It's a 2.4ghz processor, but i don't really know what type. And a mobility Radeon 3650.
I'd have liked something more powerful, but I was on a budget and I wanted something with a high-res screen. For some reason ALL the thousands of laptops for sale in tokyo seemed to only have a 1280×768 screen!
I thought it'd be underpowered, but it's surprised me. Seems to be able to run bioshock on max settings reasonably well. Internal speakers aren't so hot, but the rest seems good so far.