I'm getting a laptop, and I'm too stupid to tell if the one I like is any good

[Lemur]

And what about MTWII (Not that I'd play Vanilla, of course)?

Any machine that can handle RTW should be able to handle MTW2 as well. Just don't ask me about the original MTW; apparently there are unsolved driver issues with modern video cards. Haven't tried it meself, but I hear it's quite the problem.

Why's that?

Bigger screen = more pixels to push around. The more pixels, the more work for the graphics card. Big screens plus mobile graphics cards usually equals teh suck.

As for which machine I'd recommend, obviously I'd go with the fifteen inch version, with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit preinstalled. Shame you can't opt out of the Blu-ray drive, but then you can't have everything.