Help Me Narrow my search a little please :)

[SubVirus]

Hello! This would be my first post here
For those who look at this and think TLDR:

Spoiler

2 minimum requirements: 4th gen Intel i7 (2 GHz or more)
2GB Dedicated GFX memory
Budget is $1000~$1500

I have a hard time choosing my laptop/desktops because I can't help but get too much power and then feel the investment isn't worth it because of settling for not nearly what i want. As an Ex Information Technology Director and Programming dabbles, I am looking for something that will last at least 4 years before it starts feeling way under the "standard of technology" for example. When windows 7 first came out, all laptops/desktops were given the standard for RAM to be 4 GB minimum. Take that with a grain of salt because I know most people profess their own opinions on what the standard should be or is. /shrug
-Anyways-
I pulled these Q&A's from the Buyer's FAQ --- and here we go.

1. What is your budget?
I'm not looking to spend more than 1500 USD including tax and [input protection plan here]
However If theres a ridiculous sale like... idk 650 off a 2200 USD laptop/desktop with specs that will last me a decent amount of time, I'd be willing to increase the budget.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15 inch or bigger (anything bigger)

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1920 x 1200 or better but shouldn't be the main feature of the item...

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
I'm open to either if the desktop is -very- "Future proof"; which basically means it can be upgraded a great deal more than what I initially pay for it

5. How much battery life do you need?
This really doesn't matter to me... I don't believe in high powered laptops having really ideal battery power. It'll most likely burn itself out within 2 years anyways so its not a feature I feel i'd want to invest a lot of money into

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
I would LOVE to play civ 5 (complete edition) on medium settings (large map or bigger)
That is probably the most power hungry game i own. I would like to be able to play games that are coming out soon or have come out recently

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Photo/Video Editing, Large Animations or flash games, Android development in both apps and Customs to the OS, other programming related projects of middle to large scale (mostly edits or optimizations)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
This is something that can have lots of wiggle room. I only need enough space for the OS honestly... so what-- 50gb? give or take some extra side crap installs for programs. I have tons of external harddrives

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
As long as they deal with the US and are something I can give the product back to without much hassle if it doesn't work out of the box etc
OR
As long as it offers some sort of 2-4 business day on site or closest shop protection plan for either accidental or just extended manufacture plan for around 2 years or more. My first laptop purchase was through dell and I had their 3 year extended plan and they replaced my motherboard i kid you not, 18 times within the first 2 years and then they replaced it within the last week of the plan. I guess that was the one that worked since i haven't had a problem since then lol.... It was however a flaw in their design that caused them to overheat a crap ton with anything over basic use (despite being a commercial grade multimedia laptop - the XPS M1530)

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 years minimum (i take very good care of my equiptment, my laptop from the year 2000 (bought mid july in 2000) still works with Windows XP in the original harddrive)

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
I don't need one at all. If it comes with one - DVD of any kind is fine.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I've had a lot of luck with Dells. Both personally and professionally... They just seem to last a long time (unless you bought it from Best Buy)

13. What country do you live in?
The USA - North of Chicago, South of Milwaukee

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Please, no ridiculous keyboard layouts or basically ... crap added to the price that has nothing to do with performance or longevity.
10 key doesn't matter to me.
If the computer can come in anything that isn't windows 8, that'd be lovely. Or NO OS would be perfect because i have windows 7

So far the best laptop i've found so far in my above specs was the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Series Touch

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.0 GHz)
Windows 8.1 (64Bit) English
16GB 2 DIMM (2x8GB) DDR3L 1600Mhz
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M 2GB GDDR5
1TB SSD Hybrid
3year accidental onsite repair
Subtotal # $1,330.83
Taxtotal # $64.31
Shippingcharges # $0.00
TotalPrice # $1,395.14 (with discounts included but not specified by the sales representative)

 

[dasulman]

http/www.xoticpc.com/msi-ge60-apache-pro003-p-6958.html?wconfigure=yes
$1250, pay another $100 and you get 120GB SSD, along with a free copy of assisins creed, its quite thin and will be the best specs, besides a heavy monster of a thing shown here:
http/www.xoticpc.com/msi-gt60-dominator424-p-6955.html?wconfigure=yes
this one is about 20% better but it's much heavier
both laptops have 17.3" versions for around the same price, if not a bit more, all under your budget.