Is this card good enough to play Battlefield 2? I'm looking at getting the new HP dv6500t and BF2 is really the only game I want to play on it, any help please?

While the 8400M GS is at the low-end of the mobile Geforce 8 cards, it will perform fine for most games. I would not expect great performance if you like all the settings high, high resolution though.

Any suggestions on a better card that can run this game at the highest settings? I'm not looking at spending more than 1700 on a laptop, I'm also in no rush to buy as well.

Look for M90 from Ebay, or Dell Outlet. Make sure you get the best video card 2500M.(3500M is more powerful, but costs more)

You're going to have to go the business line of most companies to get the Nvidia Quadro cards.. usually not worth the $ for most consumers. The best gaming for laptops would be the Nvidia Geforce Go 7900s .. any one of them would perform great. But I would also look for the Geforce 8600M or 8700M.. really the only option for DirectX10 cards on laptops right now.