Well, it really depends on what you want your laptop to be able to do. Like I have a Toshiba Satellite which was about 400 dollars but this is only because I'm doing basic web browsing and college papers on it. If you want to play games and stuff, you'll probably have to shell out 1k plus to get a computer capable of handling that.

Either way, for gaming, definitely get a desktop. They are cheaper in some cases with the same, if not more, processing power than a laptop.