Please don't shoot me if this is in the wrong place!
Basicly, I'm looking to buy a new computer, preferably a laptop, which can play games well and is under ￡500 or so. I've found a couple which look good, but I really have no idea about how specs and things work. Will the following laptops be able to run games like Oblivion* at medium/higher display settings without absolutly destroying the framerate? Also, which do you guys think is the best value:
*MORE IMPORTANTLY, although I know it might be to early to tell, will they run newer games like Skyrim (or FPSs, I don't want to take this over to another forum)?

Specs are listed in links:
-http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Samsung_R525_987270.html
-http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/HP_Pavilion_DV6-3065ea_964266.html
-http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5741G_971095.html
-http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Toshiba_Satellite_Pro_L670-14M_1040587.html

Thanks so much for the help!

At a quick glance, any of those computers should do the trick. Though the Toshiba is a bit more powerful as far as gpu goes. Let someone else get into the specifics. The people around here run circles around me as far as computer knowledge goes.
-edit- That is good as far as Oblivion goes, not the skyrim thing.

Medium Oblivion shouldn't be a problem, though I wouldn't go nuts with the graphical mods and such. The Pavilion would probably be the least capable, since Oblivion isn't designed to take advantage of multiple cores (not many games do it well), and the Toshiba the most capable, having the best graphics card of the lot. Skyrim of course is all speculation, but Bethesda has never been great with game optimization; even if they meet the requirements, I wouldn't place bets on any of those running it decently.

The toshiba would be significantly better than the rest, since it has a somewhat decent graphics card. All the rest have the same, terrible GPU.

Scroll down to the game benchmarks for the GPU in the Toshiba.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

Are you sure? I don't want to argue because I'm sure you know a great deal more on the subject than I do, but my current PC has an ATI Radion 4650 and it runs Oblivion decently at 1440xSomething, and I'm pretty sure that the laptops contain a better card than that. It doesn't matter too much at the moment because I'm still saving up for one and probably won't be able to afford it until System Requirements for Skyrim have been revealed, just wanted an opinion on what these laptops would give me.

If you are going to be running 100+ mods including texture replacers, etc., I would go with a desktop instead. And for GBP500 you should be able to build a pretty powerful desktop.

I've found that using a lot of mods turns Oblivion into a much more demanding game that requires better hardware than the vanilla versions of recent AAA releases like DA2.

If you must go with a laptop, I would check out http://www.xoticpc.com for some examples of gaming laptops and try to identify something with NVIDIA 460M or better or AMD 5830M or better and ideally at least 1600x900 resolution display.

If you plan to run the vanilla game or perhaps only a few light mods, then the I would get a laptop with the card in the Toshiba you have posted above, AMD 5650 or better (or whatever the NVIDIA equivalent would be)

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. You can see exactly what GPU the laptops contain, so I don't know why you seem to be guessing that they have good cards. All but the Toshiba have a 5470. The Toshiba has a 5650. Mobile versions of graphics cards are not at all comparable to their desktop versions with the same number. Your 4650 would be pretty much equal to the Mobility 5650. The Mobility 5650 is roughly twice as powerful as the Mobility 5470.

Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't realise that the difference between the 5650 and the 5470 was so drastic. Any ideas on how the Toshiba will fare with newer games like Skyrim? If not how do you go about building your own desktop PC?

There are many tutorials that you can find through a simple google search, or you can check for some videos through youtube. I am sure the first time you attempt this it will be daunting, but the money to performance through doing it this way is a major plus.

Hard to say for certain until the specs are released, but I imagine you would perhaps be able to play Skryim on lower detail settings at relatively low resolution (not sure if the Toshiba is 1366x768), but this would be a sad way to enjoy such a great game and without a doubt your best bet is to build a desktop if you can live without the portability.

It might be helpful to check out some component pricing on http://www.newegg.com and whichever site would be the UK equivalent for the key items such as:
- GPU (try to go for a DX11 card and something in the range of the AMD 5770 or better or NVIDIA GTX 460 or better)
- Hard drive
- CPU (i5-2500k would be great if it fits in your budget, but you can go a bit lower as well)
- motherboard (if you go with i5-2500k you would need P67 motherboard)
- power supply
- case
- optical drive
- fans
- bluetooth/wifi, etc.
- keyboard/mouse
- monitor (at a minimum I would go for 1600x900, ideally 1920x1080 or better)

Once you have an idea which components you want, you can get some feedback here or on an excellent forum site for DIY desktop build advice http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/

You may want to see if you can find this laptop for a decent price where you live, more powerful and not a whole lot more money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220921&cm_re=ASUS_G_Series_G53JW-XN1_Intel_Core_i7_740QM%281.73GHz%29_15.6%22_4GB_Memory_500GB_HDD_NVIDIA_GeForce_GTX_460M-_-34-220-921-_-Product

Though if you don't need the portability buy or build a desktop.

Start by reading the OP of this thread:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1176772-the-community-tech-thread-no-98/

I've got the 5470 running in my laptop, except that it's a 1Gig card, not the 512. The max resolution I can set my laptop to is 1366x768. If you're looking to go for a 1440 resolution, the 5470 is not the card you want, especially with only 512MB on it. I can run Oblivion, FO3 and FO:NV on decent settings. Oblivion runs fine on high, while FO:NV has to be dropped down a bit.

I agree with what most of the other people have said, the Toshiba would be the best. The 5650 is a much better card than the 5470. Even though the HP has a triple core CPU while the others have dual cores, I would recommend not getting a laptop with the triple core. Mine has almost the same CPU as that HP, but it's the 830, and runs at 2.1 instead of 1.8. The FSB and cache is much worse than the i3, and it honestly makes a big difference. Any game that is CPU heavy will bottleneck at the CPU and force the graphics to be turned down a bit to run properly.

Out of those notebooks, the Toshiba Satellite Pro is the best. And the price it's going for in the UK is very good for something with a Mobility Radeon 5650.

I wouldn't consider any of those systems gaming worthy. Your far better off getting a cheap laptop for whatever mobile purpose you need it for and then spending the money you saved upgrading from the 4650 on your other computer.

Or just get a new desktop custom built with the GBP500.

Stay far far far FAR away from every HP laptop you can.

The other three are fine.

Thanks for all the input, everybody. The key point I'm getting from you all is that for the same money I could build a more powerful desktop PC, and seeing as mobility was never an essential (I just thought it would be nice to have), I'll be going down the route of building my own. Thanks again for all the help!