Least expensive Broadwell quad-core laptop with 1920x screen or better & 16+ gigs RAM (barebones?)

rufwork

Estimable
Jul 29, 2015
1
0
4,510
Looking for a programming beast. Been using an old Lenovo Thinkpad, but it's not phat enough for programming .NET MVC in a VM.

I'd like to get as fast a machine as I can with 16 gigs of RAM, and want it to have as much screen real estate as is plausible. 1920 x 1080 is a minimum.

Is there a good barebones alternative? The listing on msiwhitebook.com seem dated. Don't even care if it's a desktop processor, as long as there's a decent HD screen and good RAM expansion.

Here's the normal Q&A:

1. What is your budget?

Cheapest is best. $1500 or less, preferably less.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

12"-15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?

1920x1080 or higher.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

See above -- 15" or smaller.

5. How much battery life do you need?

3-4 hours to make a coffee shop trip is fine. Battery life isn't the most important consideration.

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)?

Let's pretend I don't. ;^)

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Coding. Visual Studio for .NET MVC within a Windows 8 guest OS in VM Player. Right now with a Lenovo T430, the proc gets pegged and I'm twiddling thumbs when I open and debug a complicated page in Chrome while running the app out of VS2013.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

256 gigs +

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

Newegg, Amazon. Not real picky.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

2-3 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

Not necessary.

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 good luck with MSI, Lenovo, & Apple, but I'm not real picky if it's reasonably high quailty.

13. What country do you live in?

USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

The Razer Blade QHD+ is really close, but I don't need the dedicated video card or the price. Just want 16 gigs of RAM and a quad core i7, preferably Broadwell.