If your daughter is a gamer, I would not go with any of the brick and mortar
store laptops or anything from Dell.
Several companies are dedicated to making customized gaming machines.
Alienware is probably the best known of these companies. You can customize a
gaming laptop starting at $849. They are probably overall more expensive
than other companies out there though. Their website is www.alienware.com.
I've also heard good things about ibuypower.com laptop PCs. These machines
you can get up to 2 GB RAM as well as a good video card and not pay all that
much more than you will with Dell.

I would start by going to Walmart or someplace like that and pick up some of
the computer gaming magazines and doing some research on the companies out
there advertising laptops and their capabilities.