Choosing a laptop

[Hateshinai]

I have about $750 (600 euros) from work to spend on IT stuff before the end of the year.
After considering different options (MAME cab, HTPC) I decided that the most practical solution to my needs will be to buy a laptop which I can occasionally hook up to my living room TV and use to watch movies in HD and play MAME with an arcade stick. That way the kids can use it for their homework instead of taking my PC.

However I know next to nothing about laptops at the moment so I am asking the help of the Racketboy hive mind to help me pick one.

My requirements are:
HDMI out
Blu-Ray
Enough power to play movies at 1080p without hassle and ideally run Street Fighter 4 and Street Fighter X Tekken decently (even with lowish settings).
Screen size doesn't matter.
It has to be Windows based.

My budget:
$750/600 euros is "free" but I don't mind throwing in another $200 or so from my pocket.

Location:
Malta, Europe. So I will have to buy online since the shops here are rather understocked.

Any laptop you guys would suggest?

[gtmtnbiker]

The only suggestion I have is to try out the laptop. I have a Sony VAIO VPCSE laptop that is nice except for the trackpad. The problem is that the trackpad is not between the two hands on the home row so sometimes when I type, my hand rests on it and then it moves the cursor and delete a bunch of text that I just typed. Very annoying.

I don't have this issue with my work laptop that is a Dell. So when I type, I have to make sure that I type with my palms up in the air.

The laptop does have good battery life and is very light (less than 4lbs) which are pluses.

[avrame]

+1 to gtmtnbiker's comments

Sony's new line is particularly nice, with it's switchable graphics card, you can turn off the high-end gpu and save some battery life if you want. My only gripe with Sony is that in their small form factor laptops, the fan+heatsink can get really noisy of the machine warms up.

Dells are a nice middle ground, but I think for your price point, you might be able to score a HP envy on some deals sites like slickdeals.net. Check out Microsoftstore.com for an idea of the more popular lines of laptops:http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/mss ... D.50787200

[Hateshinai]

Thanks for the suggestions but I changed my mind and will not be buying a laptop after all. I will spend the money on a HTPC type of machine instead.

Mods: Feel free to lock/delete the thread.

[Hobie-wan]

Why do people always ask to lock or delete threads that have generally run their course? If it is a sale thread, just note that the item is gone and edit the title on the first post, then you reuse it later if you have something else. If it is a tech question, it might help someone else to read it later. And so on.

[gtmtnbiker]

I do have a lot of experience with HTPC. I put mine together earlier this year. It was the first computer that I ever built.

[Hateshinai]

I do have a lot of experience with HTPC. I put mine together earlier this year.

In that case maybe you can help me out with some decisions. I created a new thread about it so as not to stray away from the topic of this one.
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=40609

[Niode]

I do have a lot of experience with HTPC. I put mine together earlier this year.

In that case maybe you can help me out with some decisions. I created a new thread about it so as not to stray away from the topic of this one.
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=40609

Or you can help minimise clutter and edit the original post of this thread. Please bare this in mind in future.