Time for a new laptop

[Berkut]

Going to replace the dinosaur the kids use most of the time.

Budget: Under $1000 USD
No Macs.
15.6" screen, 17" is too big to be as portable as desired.
This is NOT a replacement for a desktop, but...
My son will want to play games on it, so decent gaming performance is needed. Certainly a dedicated graphics card.

I've looked over Newegg, which is always my first stop for PC stuff, but I've never actually bought a laptop before. Are there other good places to find good prices for laptops? Should I even bother looking at somewhere like Dell?

Anyone shopped for a mid-range laptop recently?

[ulmont]

I've looked over Newegg, which is always my first stop for PC stuff, but I've never actually bought a laptop before. Are there other good places to find good prices for laptops? Should I even bother looking at somewhere like Dell?

Anyone shopped for a mid-range laptop recently?

I actually like hpshopping.com - allows a lot more customization than newegg does.  I've bought some laptops from newegg before, though (Acers IIRC), and they were fine.

[DontSayBanana]

Toshiba's 15-16" laptops: here

[Berkut]

Hmmm, I like that Toshiba site...thanks!

[Barrister]

How important is weight to you Berk?

[Berkut]

Not terribly, but not immaterial either. It si for the kids, so I don't want something very large. Peanut likes to take the laptop into the living room to "practice her cheerleading moves" with help from youtube.

[Arvoreen]

I bought my kids HP laptops for Christmas...they seem to be pretty nice (and are replacing the previous HP laptops they had).

http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/category/notebooks/dv6tse_series/3/computer_store?