My friend went one step further with this. He bought a $70 rx570 8gb off alibaba, two 4gb sticks for memory and a ryzen 2400. I am pretty sure he had to flash the gpu with a US 570 one but it actually works well. 
Probably too budget for me, but I reckon with the time and knowledge it can get pretty cheap.
Maybe check Newegg on cyber Monday. Bestbuy is like the toys r us of electronics. Iām surprised theyāre still in business tbh.
can a dell do anything well?
No, it will not run wow āwellā.
idk why people keep saying ātoastersā can run wow. They canāt, not anymore. Minimum requirements want a 560. Youāll probably run wow at all low with 20 FPS, if that.
we wouldnt know, we dont actually play, we just sit here on the forums and argue.
This would more than do the trick for WoW methinks.
Iāve never understood the concept of playing games on a laptop.
Donāt bother using a Laptop when it comes to PC gaming imo.
You could probably build a better PC cheaper than that.
I suggest going to PC building discords and sub reddits, they are good communities.
I think I would go broke building my own. I want the really good stuff. I have a CyberpowerPC with Intel i7 that is about 3 years old and itās still a wonderful computer, but I have upgraded the ram and added a larger SSD.
OP is burying the lead - how is Best Buy still in business in the age of online commerce? Is it merely a front for a vast criminal enterprise?
Inquiring bovines need to know!
/moo 
If you have an i7 of only 3 years, you donāt need anything else other than maybe a new gpu.
Never buy a dell.
Man I wouldnāt touch alibaba with a ten foot pole when it comes to computer components, haha. Yeah itās cheap but youāre very very likely to get some supremely weird shiz off of there, ranging from the thing you actually ordered to China-only variations to entirely different components flashed to look like what you bought. Itās like Russian roulette for computer components.
Not always a choice; regular intercity travelling for work, people who get a lot of downtime at work during weekends/public holidays, country-wide conferencing for business.
I prefer the desktop I have at home when I can get on it though.
Eh, Iād say their higher end stuff (XPS laptops, Precision workstations) are pretty decent but thatās true of practically any PC manufacturer. Dellās cheap stuff is definitely crap.
Oh Iām totally with you on that.
However after seeing it work, I do at some point want to āmake my own GPU powered computer from shady-parts for cheapā just as a proof of concept. 
I wouldnāt ever do it with $ that isnāt disposable incase it fails.
A good example of where youāre right is that Chinese Nvidia mining gpus donāt work properly when flashed. Linus tech tips got it working for a bit and then realised it was a flop. However they worked fine for the RX580ās so definitely would recommend doing the research to prevent disappointment.
As to Dell Iāve been using them from when I was small (hand-me-downs from my dad). Writing this from my Dell Inspiron 7577. What am I meant to be watching out for again?
Some can. My XPS 9570 with a 15" screen can run the game easily. Then again, a budget laptop itās not, Iāll admit. Itās also not what I game on at home - I have a desktop for that. Still, the laptop does just fine. Itās primarily a work machine and company $ bought it, so I wasnāt price shoppingā¦but itās perfect for what I want it to do. But itās also 5X what the OP wants to spend.
370-ACUY 16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz 1
400-AXKB M.2 512GB 2280 PCIe Solid State Drive 1
490-BENP NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050Ti with 4GB GDDR5 1
555-BCRM Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2 1
555-BEKE Killer 1535 Driver 1
338-BOMQ 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8750H Processor (9MB Cache, up to 4.1 GHz, 6 Cores) 1
Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070
I doubt it would run very good. The graphics card on there is pure crap when it comes to any type of gaming. CPU isnāt nothing to be excited about. Also 128GB isnāt much storage space. For the price of that laptop you could get a nice desktop that would run wow really well (and other games).
If you do most of your gaming in the same place, give serious consideration to a desktop over a laptop.
Laptop marketing makes it seem like you can get similar hardware in a laptop as your desktop. What that leaves it out is that thermal and other platform considerations often mean that even when that is true, it delivers less performance and reliability while making a lot more noise and costing more for what you get.
I shop on the other end of the budget spectrum from you and while Iāve had gaming laptops that are functionally capable of gaming, Iāve yet to ever have one Iām truly happy with.