Gaming Laptops?

Hiya! I figured you guys know about hardware and stuff, and I need a hand.

My b day is next month (yay ! party at my place!), and a relative is getting me a laptop, (woo hoo!), heres the problem, I want something that will play games decently, like WoW and Oblivion, Bioshock, Civ4, etc. She wont spend over 1200 and anything I want extra I have to fork over. (she's a big dell fan too). So I start building dell laptops and I start with the inspiron and base is around 1000 or so, but of course I add a few goodies, like 2gigs of ram, a better video card, yummy widescreen, etc, but I get to around 1700 or so, with stuff I absolutely need in it, but the video card I can only upgrade to 256mb, that isnt too much by todays standards.

So I move onto the xps and if I want a 512 mb card, its gonna cost me around 2 grand, base, without adding a better cpu or more memory or anything.

Do you guys know of any gaming laptops that wont like cost me an arm and a leg? Dell's are a bit pricey for only 128 or 256 meg video cards.

why do u want a laptop? there a total waste of money if u ask me....for one they dont last long when ur playing games, unless your near a power source....and there super expensive....u wont get much cheaper then what you've got right now, if i where u id just go with a desktop...there much cheaper, for $1200 u can get all the parts from www.newegg.com and build you a very very nice CPU, and if u dont know how to build a computer, there are guides all over the Internet....its much easier then u think...or just a get a friend to help youjrotc_redneck

idk lol, i dont see the point in them....for me, if im gonna make the effort to go outside, i wanna do something more interesting then play on my laptop...i can always do that at home, on my much more powerful and cheaper desktop :)

now a basic laptop for work and school i can understand....gaming laptops just seem a waste to me....but hey thats just me lol

idk lol, i dont see the point in them....for me, if im gonna make the effort to go outside, i wanna do something more interesting then play on my laptop...i can always do that at home, on my much more powerful and cheaper desktop :)

now a basic laptop for work and school i can understand....gaming laptops just seem a waste to me....but hey thats just me lol

jrotc_redneck

Agreed, but the only thing which is good with gaming laptops, is that your could take them to any lanparty without any hassle.