Over the course of the upcoming week, I'm looking into buying a new laptop for college, the $1,000 budget does come with a good amount of sway.
[b]Priorities[/b]
I know some of these will be hard to meet in the price range, but I'm willing to pay extra to get what I need.
* At least an i5 Haswell
* 8GB RAM
* Excellent battery life
* Preferably a high resolution screen
[b]Applications[/b]
I'll be doing mainly development work, things like Visual Studio, Sublime Text, and small virtualized containers.
[b]Things I can reuse[/b]
If the laptop contains a standard 2.5" bay, I have a 256GB SSD I can use.
Also, worth mentioning that I qualify for education discounts.
I have looked into things like the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, Ideapad U530, and the Surface Pro 3. I'm hoping to get some suggestions of alternatives before I make a big purchase.
Thank you!
Take a look at the Thinkpad T540P.
I have the 2014 version of the Dell XPS 13 which does what I want (mostly HD movies and browsing but have done some light design work without issue), the battery life is decent but certainly not outstanding. Think the lower range one is about the right price for you but I do have the higher spec model.
Not sure many ultrabooks have 2.5" inch bays or really any upgradability so what you get will be what you have to stick with.
When I was researching it seemed like Apple equivalents (air and "13 macbook pro) vastly out performed on the battery life front so may be worth looking into if that is your biggest priority. I was only looking at "13 models though.
I've heard great things about the Surface Pro 3, but that doesn't have a 2.5" bay. I've also heard decent things about the yoga
Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I decided to run with the little brother of the T540p, the T440s. I remembered I qualify for business discounts as well, and got around $200 off the laptop.
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