The laptops you get from other companies are from the same set of ODMs (original design manufacturers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laptop_brands_and_manufacturers#ODM_Laptop_Units_sold_and_Market_Shares

It might be worthwhile to check them out, see if you can get better pricing getting it from the source.  I think you can buy direct from a number of them, like Clevo and Compal.

If you want to keep your old laptop around and it works resonably well, it might be worth your time to just buy a new battery and put Ubuntu or some other linux distro on it, as those OSs run well on lower end hardware.

As for laptops overheating, it is a problem for a lot of models, usually due to inadequate cooling design.  I've had an HP fail on me because the video chip was overworked and used thermal pads instead of quality paste.  Luckily it failed in warranty so when I got it back first thing I did was to replace it with some quality paste.  Best thing to do is to read forums about the different laptop brands and look for common complaints, and see if it's something you can live with.

Here is the laptop I recently got a week ago. It plays most games on high/very high at resonable(30fps ) framerates with the exception of the top of the top in terms of graphic requirements where it does well enough -- around medium setting. For everything else it runs very fast. The only issue I have with it is the battery life, but I was mostly looking for performance rather than portability. There is also a lot of Asus bloatware, but that can be deleted easily. 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220875&Tpk=ASUS N53JF-XE1

Oh and 1080p and the blu-ray drive are great reasons to buy it if you're interested in media applications. :)

I assume the Laptop is a Toshiba? As with yours, on mine the left hand side gets hot and the right side stays at room temperature, but if I try to play a game without sufficient cooling, then it will eventually shutdown.

Most the time now if I'm doing some serious gaming I put my laptop down on a milk crate, such that it is almost completely suspended in the air, then I use my external keyboard, mouse and huge screen.

Oh yeah, maybe that's why yours doesn't heat up as much as mine, mine is using a 17 inch screen and an ~26 inch one too

Try running a vacuum over all the vents.  It's pretty amazing how dusty the insides of those things get, a simple vacuuming can drop the operating temperature by 10 degrees celcius.

Yea, Toshiba, and it is the left side, but it only gets hot if playing games, and even then, it has never affected anything for my gaming.  It's still relatively new ~6 months, but I intend on vacuuming out vents in near future, and every so often, as it can really help out.

My gaming laptop is in place of a desktop computer much like almost ANY other person who gets a high end gaming laptop. So I play 99% of the time with it plugged in. If I go to a friends house, I easily can bring my high end gaming laptop and plug it in at his house, if I go to my parents house, bring my computer, I can bring it anywhere I go and play. If I wanted a sissy little laptop that had a battery life of 8 hours I would have bought a cheap HP or something (reliable, but not for me) Oh and to answer your question, if I were to use it without it plugged in, it gets about 5 hours of battery life which is very respectable for  laptop of its size. 

So... I got my new laptop! ^_^

I got the HP Pavilion dv7-4285dx laptop from BestBuy today.

I'm liking it very much thus far, although the size will take some getting used to (gorgeous 17.3" 1600x900 resolution screen is totally worth it though). The 640GB HD is very nice too, especially compared to my GateWay's 50 GB HD.

Also... I <3 the fingerprint scanner. That just oozes coolness.

I would expect that to struggle on Starcraft II medium settings. It will be playable but you could have gone a tiny bit further with the graphics card.

Oh my, finger print scanner...

an asus laptop. i got one 5 months ago for 1.5k it runs starcraft perfectly.