are you going to be gaming while not at "home" (home being your dorm/apartment/home)?
personally, i have an m11x r1 (although i don't technically have a desktop computer [hence the gamingish notebook] i sometimes use my brothers [we share stuff]), and i don't game while out/at school because it's too much hassle bringing a mouse, powerbrick, and earbuds. (i usually only bring my notebook <3 battery life).
so if you have a desktop computer at to your dorm/apartment/home, you might think of just getting a portable notebook/netbook or tablet (one of the elusive $99 or $149 HP Touchpads? perhaps
although note taking might be problematic)
starcraft 2 runs on lots of new generation notebooks at low settings (probably 1366x768?) (pretty much all non netbook performance notebooks: brazos (~40fps) /atom w/ ion (~25fps)/atom (~4 fps)/intel gma 4500 (~ 11 fps)
starcraft 2 is supposedly playable at 30fps, so
sandybridge APU: HD 2000 would be the lowest for getting 60 fps on low, brazos E-350 w/ 6310 40 fps
if that's acceptable there are countless options for you,
otherwise some gaming-ish notebook choices:
the m11x r3 11.6" is probably one of the best compact gaming capable notebooks out there, as a bonus it has a decent battery life to boot (no optical drive: starcraft 2 is downloadable from blizzard, i hate how almost all <13" notebooks don't have optical drives, even some 13" ones, wth is with that?)
alienware m11x (r3 has the 540 (will play starcraft 2 on medium), and will probably be on sale sometime, otherwise r2 is 800$ atm r2 won't do starcraft 2 smoothly higher than low supposedly (anandtechs reviews are likely from the old drivers though), m11x r2 sc2 ultra runs at 28fps average
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAJOuOsgbsA)
the m14x is just a bit out of your price range ($1100 base model, note: the
VIDEO memory upgrade is worthless) but also a good gaming notebook for its size, also has pretty impressive battery life.
15.6" a bit big, but RIDICULOUSLY cheap, i wouldn't recommend this if you're taking your notebook to class daily for note taking, based on weight and size (most college desks are those crappy tiny triangly things) also i couldn't find info on battery life :S (at this price you could get this
and another cheap portable notebook/netbook!
)
asus K53TA-BBR6
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2183480&highlight=asus
the asus u30sd will be coming out soon, although it's not a gaming notebook
portable, high battery life, and overall beautiful notebook (if you so wish, there are some easy modifications to add a backlight on the older models, so i suspect it won't be difficult for this one) <3 as per notebookcheck, the 520 will play starcraft 2 on low at ~120fps, med runs at ~28 fps
13.3" core i3, nvidia 520, ~10 hr battery life
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/U30SD/
some decent choices off newegg (i filtered out the 15 and 16" notebooks, since they're not very portable, and the K53TA is an awesome deal anyway, why no battery life filter on power search T.T? i'm suggesting it to newegg! woo!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ue=445%3A14142
too bad the macbook pro 13" doesn't have a dedicated GPU anymore :S
they usually offer some kind of deal on them (either through the campus bookstore, or
online) and while i'm not really a fan of apple, their macbook aluminum unibody is smexy :3
so, if gaming isn't that big of a priority (bringing a desktop to your dorm/apartment or living at home) they're an ok choice
zomg wall of text, this post took me forever :S i have too much "free" time :\
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