Thank you Veritable! Very good info.
Country of purchase: Finland. Screen: 15.6-17.3 inches. Normal mobility is all that I need. Budget: About $890.
As for the level of performance by SL, I can't possibly see that it could be worse than that what I've had since April 2008 on the old (now dead) laptop, a HP nx6110. That one actually didn't meet the requirements for the graphics card at all, but SL somehow managed to perform well enough for me. I'm not a builder, just a basic user that loves to explore.
I have a few possible candidates that are readily available (I need a new laptop fast), including:
Acer Aspire 5551G with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Asus A52JK with ATI Radeon HD5145
Asus K70ID with nVidia GeForce GT 320M
Fujitsu Amilo Pi 3560-02 with nVidia GeForce GT240M
Toshiba Satellite L650-11R with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Can you recommend any of these? Thanks again.