New Computer

So, I'm going to college, and I need a laptop. My parents say get the best laptop you can buy. I say get a shitty laptop that can do word processing, and has a wireless card, then use the rest of the money on a desktop. If I did this would my desktop be better than their laptop?

You need quad core CPU with at least 8 gig of RAM and dual nvidia 8800s to handle that amount of emailing and interweb browsing