If I hook my laptop to a TV, then hi res would be needed (I won a 19" TV at the after prom party!!! BOOYAH!!). A 19" TV is actually a screen of 19", unlike moniters. I could also hook it up to our Sony Wega 24", now
that would be gaming

. I made a thread at Voodoo's forums asking about how the laptops are expected to perform on Half Life 2 and Doom III. They said that the best test is to try Far Cry, and that runs extremely well on them, so they said no worries about running HL2 and Doom III.
This thread is supposed to be about Chuck's laptop, and I don't think he's interested in a $3500+ laptop. I don't know if I would recommend an Apple, the single button mouse is a big turn off for me, and I don't know about reliability, but I wouldn't think they're bad. Chuck, see if you can get any discounts on a laptop from the university. A friend of mine is getting a Dell laptop from UMASS for $700, originally $1200.