Part because I'm lazy and the other part is if I do decide to build my own I will take a stupid amount of time to research everything and then making sure everything is in there perfectly and working perfectly.  The last time I built my PC it took me about a week to get everything done because I start getting to nit picky about every little thing.

And I know PC's are much better, I just enjoy having laptops so much more.  Who knows, maybe I will end up going the PC route again, I just like being able to play on the internet and watch TV.

If you don't mind the Dell laptops they have a sale on studio's you can get one with decent enough specs to play spore and MMO's (probably even left 4 dead when it comes out)

Speced out:

2.16 Core 2 Duo
3GB DDR2 RAM
250GB Hard drive
256 ATI Radeon HD 3450
15.4in HD Widescreen
Windows Vista 32bit.
Price: $849

You can upgrade to a 17in screen for $100 more (you also get a number pad on the keyboard if you do)

EDIT: They even have optional fingerprint readers for maximum security!

Oh! I forgot about Left4Dead, I'd definitely want something that could play that.

And actually, I think I am leaning more towards a PC now and Ben's right, it shouldn't take me long if I decide to build one myself. Though I do like the laptop rasone77 pointed out.

^Personally I'd get the laptop. Mine is very similar to the one I described (I went for the 17in HD screen on an inspirion) and I couldn't tell you how much more gaming I get in because I can take where ever I want. I do most of my playing at school or work. (I work in a math lab where I sit around waiting for people to show up with a math problem for me to solve or help them understand).

Since Feb when I got it, I've beat: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Half-life 2 and logged more than 100 hours in TF2 and NWN2 most of that at the college using their internet. (lol).

It's worth every extra dollar I spent to be able to do that.

TigerDirect is overpriced. Newegg is cheaper.

Honestly, I know how nice a good laptop can be, especially one that can handle recent games on decent settings.

But it's going to be double the price, and a new gaming PC will still be very nice.

I shop almost exclusively at newegg.com...tigerdirect has deals sometimes, and always check slickdeals.net for recent deals on various sites.

You could buy everything you need tonight, though I wouldn't discourage taking the time to find the absolute best price to performance package.

Probably don't need much to play Spore, Starcraft 2, and most MMOs. They tend to optimize the higher selling games more to reach mass market.

 Agreed you arent going to need a lot of power to play most of those games. The only MMO that really requires a lot of specs to play is Age of Conan (other PC gamers inject more if you of some). A decent gaming laptop is going to be hard to come by and especially brand new. Id either try Newegg or look up Dell refurbished notebooks and see if you can catch a deal there assuming you dont mind refurbs. Other than that Id go with a regular desktop for longevity and more value minus the mobility.

Yeah, usually if I have to buy anything and I can afford the wait I go straight to NewEgg.

And I thought about it a bit more.  My PC is still fine, and while I would love to upgrade it so that it could run most new stuff, I'd rather have the laptop.  I just like the portability.  I even talked to the parents today and they're going to help me out a but as an early birthday present so I can either be good and save my money or take the money they would give me to help me and get a better laptop. 

Yes, that's the best website for this sort of thing. However, they have a later edition guide than that:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15381