I wouldn't listen to Charty about HPs... He probably owned one of their lower end laptops. I had a laptop from HP and it worked fine

. I'm not as good with laptops as I am with desktops, but I'll do my best. Also, I don't know if you should get a laptop at Bestbuy or any place like that because that's where I bought mine for $400. It was ok, but I built a desktop for $200 more and it ended up being at least 4 times faster.
Ok, the operating system doesn't matter because it's personal preference, but I say go with Windows 7

. Windows 8 is terrible in my opinion. It actually slows down your computer because they've got too much in it as an OS.
That processor isn't very amazing :/. My processor has double the GHz and it has 8 cores (desktop CPU)... You don't need to get anything like that, but I recommend getting a processor with 4 cores and about 2.5 GHz? Processors are my weak spot, but I know for sure that the processor there won't help very much.
For RAM, you're going to want to go with at least 4 GB. Anything below that is not going to last. If you can get one with 6 or 8 GB of RAM, do it. Most newer games need at least 8 GB of RAM to play on higher settings, so I'm just warning you

.
Here's a pretty nice laptop. There's only 4 GB of ram, but if you want 8 it'll be really expensive. The processor is quad-core so you're good there. Also, it's $50 off and it's original price is $450. It's touch screen too, which I don't know much about, but it might be useful.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Black-15.6-15-F014WM-Laptop-PC-with-AMD-Quad-Core-A8-Processor-4GB-Memory-Touchscreen-750GB-Hard-Drive-Windows-8.1-Bundle-w-Wireless-Mouse-U/38192989 This laptop is definitely better than the last one. It's processor is an APU, so the graphics card is basically built into the processor. Just being an APU doesn't make it better though. A lot of times, APU processors can be bad. It all depends what graphics they put onto it. I compared both computers on a website I found and the results made it an obvious win for this one. The rest of the computer is basically the same, thee only difference is this computer doesn't have a touch screen.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Regal-Purple-15.6-15-g173wm-Laptop-PC-with-AMD-Quad-Core-A8-6410-APU-Processor-4GB-Memory-750GB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-8.1/39500064 This is basically the same laptop as before, just with a 2" bigger screen. I don't know how you like your laptops, but this one is 17.3". The processor is a little different, but overall same performance.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Natural-Silver-17.3-Pavilion-17-f029wm-Laptop-PC-with-AMD-Quad-Core-A6-6310-APU-Processor-4GB-Memory-750GB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-8.1/39500063That's all I got

. Like I said, I'm not very good with laptops, but for that price range it's difficult to find a good laptop, I know that. It'd probably be best to get a laptop off of Ebay, you can get it for cheaper there.
Edit: I found you some amazing laptops on Ebay. I'm putting them down here because they are on Ebay, but seriously, they're way better than the laptops I already mentioned! (P.S. I put these in order from best to not so best

).
1.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-305V5A-A0D-15-6-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Black-/151540594778?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item234885f85a2.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude-E6320-Core-i5-2-5Ghz-Laptop-8GB-1TB-WiFi-DVDRW-Windows-7-/351263023671?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item51c8e862373.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude-E6410-Core-i5-2-4Ghz-Laptop-8GB-1TB-WiFi-DVDRW-Windows-7-/351261868460?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item51c8d6c1acThere. Now that's all I got. I hope you end up getting a good deal on a good laptop

. Peace

.