need help in finding a laptop

Hello all,

my 6 year old desktop is finally dying on me... and I decided to switch over to laptops instead. Here's what I'm looking for:

1. i5 processor or better
2. under $800 (or $10-$20 over it's fine)
3. 15"-17" screen
4. anything that's better than my desktop's Nvidia 7600GT (I've been looking at 540m, do all 540m have optimus?)
5. battery life isn't a huge deal, I'm mainly using it as a desktop replacement, 6 cell battery is probably standard I assume?
6. Non-HP and non-Dell

a) Preferred to be easily output to two external monitors if possible (how does that work nowadays? I haven't looked at computer hardware for a LONG time)
b) Doesn't have to be, but preferred to be from Amazon.com (I've got lots of store credits there)

hard drive, RAM isn't a huge deal since I can always replace them...
I work with programming, Visual Studio etc... don't play much games on computer, and when I do, I don't mind putting things in low-medium setting at all just to get them to work since I mostly play console games.

if under $800 isn't possible with my requirements, can anyone give me a price point of what I should expect?

I know you put your requirements as i5 and such but take a look at this if your at a low end budget.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+...Id=4566308

Quote from plflorence : 1. i5 processor or better 2. under $800 (or $10-$20 over it's fine) 3. 15"-17" screen ?

What games you plan on playing?
849.99 ASUS G73 i7 2630QM17.3" 8GB 750GB 7200rpm 460M [newegg.com]
529.99 Lenovo 14 " ThinkPad E i5-2410 4GB 500GB [officedepot.com]
465.99 Toshiba Intel i5-2430 4GB 500GB 15.6" [ebay.com]
409.99 ASUS A6 4GB 500GB 6650M [newegg.com]