*sigh* He wanted something he can run Outlook on and there is no guarantee that Civilization 5 is coming to OS X.
I can't help... I went cheap, cheap, cheap and bought a Dell. But it looks like you have the budget to go big. In terms of beautiful graphics, I've heard good things about the Vaio:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1529277/