What type of gaming? Heavy gaming or Light gaming?
With light gaming for Warcraft 3 sessions, even an integrated card (Intel X----) would suffice, though you should avoid Intel GMA 950s.
For heavier gaming, you might need at least an 8600.
The latter boosts up your price to around 1,000. The former, around 700.
If you want a light, powerful portable, consider a Dell XPS M1330/1530. Yeah, it's around 1K, but Dell coupons are pretty much everywhere online, dropping that price a couple hundred dollars.
HP provides some good alternative, as well as Gateway, Lenovo, and all the other prominent notebook manufacturers.
Bigger ram: 3GB or better if you want it for gaming
minimum 160GB memory: for music and movies, etc.
one that provides Office or microsoft works (trust me you'll need it)
Mine is a Sony Vaio and i love it... it was a bit pricy $800 but from all the reviews it seems to be a pretty strong and well built piece of equipment. avoid acers, toshibas, and Hps... they tend to crash after a year or less