Save up a bit longer

Dell Inspiron

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-i1545-3232OBK/15223...

I have this laptop and run Left 4 Dead 2, Minecraft, and many other games very smoothly. This is the best laptop within your price range. This is in my opinion.

Take that $500 and add it as upgrades into a desktop with some headroom. As far as laptops go that wont get you very far. I just spent $550 a couple days ago and although the hardware is good enough for gaming, you wont find a laptop with a good enough GPU. Mine is a 2.6ghz i5 dual core with 6gb DDR3 ram and 500gb HDD. Its the intel 1300HD graphics that make it useless for any game more demanding than solitaire. If your looking for a basic gaming laptop your looking at a minimum of $800 and dont expect much.

I agree, but if you truly want an answer i suggest going to: (below) and finding a used laptop from ebay. If I were you and wanted one at your price, I would start there. Hope this helps!

$500 is not nearly enough for a decent gaming laptop

For gaming, browsing the web and for looking at video, different entertainment and for stories. So many pretty stable computing device are on hand those may also fulfill your necessities.