buying a laptop

[total0]

hey [H],
i need your advice with buying a new laptop. i cant get my head around the whole thing. I want it for gaming and movies, performance/price is important to me.
I'm looking for one with:
15" or 17" screen
3 - 4 GB ram
intel CPU
Now, what CPU would you recommend me? I'm looking for the best for the buck kind of cpu (the e6600 type as it were).
What GPU would recommend? nvidia or ati and what model?
What brand?
Any other thoughts? SSD or regular HDD?

oh, and my budget is ~$1200 (not originally in $), might be more if dollar gets cheaper before xmas.

 

[batteriesnotincluded]

Best Buy has an Asus G50 vx1 or something like that for $1050.

On the good side, it has a 9800GS from nVidia. One the bad side, it's only a 1366x768 or something monitor, which is too low in resolution IMHO.

SSD won't be in your price range.

Gateway's FX series, if you can find them should be decent as well, but it looks like Best Buy is clearancing them out.

 

[total0]

Best Buy has an Asus G50 vx1 or something like that for $1050.

On the good side, it has a 9800GS from nVidia. One the bad side, it's only a 1366x768 or something monitor, which is too low in resolution IMHO.

SSD won't be in your price range.

Gateway's FX series, if you can find them should be decent as well, but it looks like Best Buy is clearancing them out.

I was wondering if Asus and Acer are good laptop brands. They seem to make really good laptops for low price compared to e.g. Lenovo, HP or Dell.