Laptop for College $1000-$1500

[JasonS95]

I'll be starting my classes this fall and I'm looking for some good recommendations for a laptop/ultrabook or anything really.

I'll be doing quite a bit of programming and I've been told to try and get an i7.

I have a great desktop for gaming so that isn't too important, but it would be awesome to have some gaming capabilities. I would like it to have a decent battery life though. At least 4 or 5 hours maybe?

Also, should I wait a little while for the Haswell chip? Classes don't start till August.
I'm also not against getting something like a Surface Pro if it can perform what I need it to.

I'd like a 1080p screen and around 13 or 15 inches for the screen.

$1000-$1500 price range is preferred. Thanks!

 

[kawininjazx]

If you have until August, I would just keep your eye open for some nice deals. An i7 ultrabook from ASUS or Lenovo would be a good choice, or you could always get a macbook and run windows in a virtual machine depending on what your programming needs are.

 

[g-unit1111]

If you have until August, I would just keep your eye open for some nice deals. An i7 ultrabook from ASUS or Lenovo would be a good choice, or you could always get a macbook and run windows in a virtual machine depending on what your programming needs are.

You will HATE using an Ultrabook for any thing that's not Microsoft Office. If you need to run VMs or anything like that, the ultra low power CPUs on these laptops will struggle immensely. I wouldn't pay the ridiculous premiums for a Macbook Pro either. Too much money for really old hardware.

I'd recommend getting something like a Lenovo Y500 or a Sager NP series, that would be a far better use of your funds.

 

[JasonS95]

The y500 definitely looks pretty good. I've never read anything about a Sager though. Do you know if the y500 is getting a Haswell upgrade soon?