Buying a laptop

Here's the situation: this school I'm going to gives you a $750 voucher to get either a desktop or a laptop. I already have a Dell Inspiron 6000 but that's at least 3 years old and it has a hard time running the simplest of games.

I'm leaning towards getting a new laptop. I'll be using this new laptop for: homework, research, and once I'm done with this class, definitely gaming. I want to be able to run Starcraft 2 on it. What specs would you guys recommend?

Oh, I should also mention I have to buy a Dell computer.

Can you add money onto to voucher. Ex: use the $750 they give you, and add another 300 of your own so that you can get an XPS system or something?

And about SC:2, they haven't released the sytem requirements yet.

Yeah, they only pay $750 so if I wanted a system more than that I would have to pay for the extra amount, which I have no problem doing.

I'll check through their ADs after lunch, but something like i've got (2.4ghz Dualcore, 2gigs ram, 160gig hd, 15.4 display, DVD/CD burner, 256mb integrated video) only ran my like $700 bucks a year ago, i'm sure you can get something very similar if not a little better for that price. The only thing I would try to go is get a platform that is upgradable, or has a higher video chip.

or has a higher video chip.

This is my main concern, although I suppose I could get a better video card down the road should it not perform well.

Well it really depends if you can upgrade it or not, is where i'm getting at. My 256 is okay, but I CANNOT upgrade it, because of the board my laptop is on, i'd have to change everything out and at that point it would be stupid.

Hmm.

If it's a question of which processor to get, I'd recommend the AMD Turion instead of the Intel Centrino. The Amd is flat out more powerful, can handle more than one application at the same time without losing speed, and it is good for games. The Centrino I've been told is better for "professional use."

Excuse me as I listen in on this. I was actually planning on getting a laptop when I get my income tax next year...