Laptop recommendations, please?

[woodson1975]

So, I'm in market for a new laptop. Primarily a business machine (will be used for the likes of dev work with Visual Studio, and some Photoshop work as well), but it'll also be used for general day to day use. No gaming though.

The kind of specs I'm thinking are:

Screen size: 15-17"
Processor: Core i5 (3rd or 4th gen)
Battery Life: 5 hours would be good
HDD size: 500G
RAM: 6-8G (unless it's cheaper to get a machine with far less RAM and then upgrade separately?)
Weight: 2kgs (ish)

What brands do people recommend? I hear good things about Samsung. What do people think of Acer?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[jaguarskx]

I don't like Acer. Maybe the Timeline series is decent.

I am actually considering Lenovo's upcoming 15.6" ThinkPad T540p which is expected to be released in November; the 14" T440p as well. The T540 is "rated" to last up to 11 hours (12 hours for the T440) of normal usage. I would expect wifi is switched off.

The ThinkPad E540 may or may not be available as an option to you since it is only going to be released in select European markets. Too bad I was kinda thinking about the E540 instead of the T540. But since it's not going to be released in the US....

http/www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/lenovo-thinkpad-business-notebooks-haswell/