To me, any "laptop" is too heavy to carry more than between buildings, so we have extremely different use requirements.
I did write a few "laptop selection articles" a few yrs ago when I was in the market that might get you thinking about things you haven't considered yet.
http://blog.jdpfu.com/2010/04/23/buy...-stuff-to-know has a link inside to the older article. Both are
I haven't used a laptop (currently a Core i5) on battery more than 15 minutes in years. OTOH, I use my netbook for 5+ hrs every weekend in a programming class and once a month giving presentations - while remote connected to my "desktop" in a private cloud.
I find the build of Dell non-business computers to be fine, but not nearly as good as the business line ... which usually adds $500 to the price.
With dual-GPU laptops, you'll want to figure out the dual-GPU support methods - usually the onboard Intel is used on battery and the ATI is used under power, for example. That switchover can be problematic.
Also, during recent programming classes people with extremely thin laptops didn't bring the dongle necessary to plug into an ehternet port. Because wifi sucked, those people were left taking notes during a hands-on programming class. Not good.
* battery life (unimportant to me); might need user swappable batteries.
* keyboard "feel" (most important - had a laptop with terrible feel and couldn't touch-type on it)
* resolution (1080p min) - discrete GPU
* ports (USB3/eSATA/GigE)
* SDHC reader (camera photo xfers)
* wifi 300Mbps or greater - I've been burned
* 3r gen core i5 CPU
* 6G+ RAM
* 500G+ HDD ... I prefer spinning disks over SSDs still
Does that model address your concerns?
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