I am curious if any normal laptops can play this game smoothly (not including the $4000 alienware laptops).

Me and my wife both like playing mmos while lying in bed (or at least having the ability to do so), and having a laptop be able to run this game smoothly would help facilitate this :)

anyways, thanks in advance

yes my Asus G50V that cost about $1000 plays it with no problems except when in an area with a lot of people...then it only stuttered a little and windows came up slow, but nothing that stopped play.

I will add I was playing with it at medium settings.

 thanks for that info :)

did you have the graphics turned down, or were they medium/high?

I was on medium, but if you are at a low pop area you could max it probably.

Try this Gateway P Series

www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668358.php

I've got an year older version of it (and paid 1200 bucks more) but it plays all games fine.   (I run 3 instances of EVE on it at the same time)

There are cheaper versions of it that might also work.

 I play the game on a HP dv5 1142eg (Intel p8400 2,2 GHz C2D, NV 9600 mGT DDR2 and 3GB Ram) and it runs in outside areas 30-60 FPS, in populated towns 10-30 FPS, inside of buildings 30-60 FPS too. With the shadows and andanced eyecandies turned off the game still looks fine and the view range is awesome. Texture and terrain quality are both maxed out, and I´m running 16X AF. 

Kyleran, you are alwaus there, i remember you even replying to old swg threads, Kudos ;)

but yeah, just dont get a laptop with a shared gfx memory....

I've heard of people attempting it, but the laptops crash due to the amount of stress put on the memory and heat generated due to that stress.  I'm going to do some testing of my own on a my gf's Asus gaming laptop that seems to run things WAY better than my desktop system.  My desktop system is just below minimum specs for FE(still runs 25-45 fps in town and 100-181 fsp outside towns), but the laptop should meet and exceed the specs.  I'll post my findings later. 

Asus G50VT-X2  the newer Asus laptops will run it even better. I'm thinking of cracking this one open and redoing the heatsink compound. They all use that crap thick thermal pad. something faster than a P8600 CPU wouldn't hurt me either.

i played it on my year old dell xps m1530 works just fine had to turn down the settings in towns but i maxed it else where with no hickups

I play with no problems, settings turned to high on an Asus a51j-a1.

Link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220605

Cheers!