I have a very small apartment and don't really have room for a TV (nor can I wall mount one, sadly, because my landlord won't let me.) What would you recommend for a notebook that can do gaming at good detail levels and also has a very good screen and speakers for playing movies on? BluRay would be nice but not really essential if it's too expensive.
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Garry, there's some good notebooks that fit those needs exactly. Generally speaking, notebooks with high quality speakers and big screens aren't very portable, but you probably anticipated that given you wanted an adequate for watching movies. Here's what we currently have in the database for notebooks with good quality sound, big screens and mid-level gaming capabilities (as the high-end gaming rigs with desktop-level performance are really extremely expensive.)
http://apcmag.com/notebookhunter/search/search-results.htm?Categories=1193497899170861188
The Toshiba Satellite P500/01U is a particularly well-priced machine in this category -- with an RRP of $1999, it gives you an 18.4 inch screen with a resolution of 1680x945 (not quite full HD, but higher than 720P resolution, which qualifies as "HD"), Harmon/Kardon speakers, an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 2.13GHz, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 230M graphics chip for good gaming capabilities. One thing it doesn't have at that price is a Blu-Ray player. And of course, it's a whopping 4.4KG -- you won't be putting it in a backpack and taking it to work with you, or putting it on your lap, for that matter.
If you do want a Blu-Ray capable machine, there's a slighly upgraded model, the Toshiba P500/020 which does come with a BluRay drive, for $2299. It also has a faster 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo processor, more hard drive space (640GB instead of 500GB).