Looking for a portable workhorse-Questionnaire filled out

[rapids]

Hello everyone,

I am an engineer and am looking for a portable device on which I will be able to work on computational software.

1. What is your budget? Upto 1500 USD

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 12.3 inches screen

3. What screen resolution do you want? Equivalent or better than 1920x1080

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

5. How much battery life do you need? Atleast 4 hours

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)? No.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
This will be my primary device for quite sometime(atleast 3 years). So pretty much all the things such as my engineering software and including browsing, making ppts, excel work etc.. Since the device is geared towards running computational software, I would want to buy a quad core device.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I am little unsure about this. Since I am looking for a portable option, the price vs increase in SSD storage is quite a steep rise. So, I am thinking a 256 GB SSD and I have an external 1 TB HDD that should suffice. If this is very restricting, only then I will think about a 512 GB option. The catch is that the device that I have looked at (Vaio canvas Z) the 512 GB option is available with 16 GB RAM. I'm not sure if that much RAM is really required. I use a system with 8 GB RAM at work it's ok...not great but I feel that's enough.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
The device will be bought from Amazon USA. Amazon, because it will be easy for my friend in the US to order.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? Atleast 3-4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? None

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 do not want to buy anything from Dell because of bad experiences with their post warranty support for their devices. No preference w.r.t. other brands.

13. What country do you live in? India

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

a. The device will be bought from US. Also, I have quite a LOT of travelling and shifting to do in the foreseeable future. So, I want something very portable.

b. I do not keep a lot a data on the system. Mainly documents and just installed software. I copy the movies etc. from the external HDD to local storage on a requirement basis and delete it. I would like to install linux on the machine for a dual boot, but it is not mandatory.

c. Is the 512 GB SSD with 16 GB RAM config. really needed to future proof for the next 3 years? I would prefer to buy the 256 GB SSD option of the Vaio canvas Z (unless someone suggests a better option), though it has only 8 GB RAM. I could use external HDDs or I could add an SD card to increase local storage and save quite a bit of money.

d. The device is currently not sold in India so I am aware of the limitations in terms of the support options. I am ok with that right now. I am unsure if the warranty will hold. My friend will be testing it for a couple of weeks before I get it.


Thank you everyone for reading this long post and thank you in advance for your suggestions.

 

[hang-the-9]

First, if you think Dell had poor warranty support, you do not want to buy from outside your country. Anything bought in the US will have to be shipped there for support with every warranty agreement I know off. Anytime you buy outside of the models available where you live, you are now in grey market area, and any support will not be easy to get.

Lenovo X260 with the FHD screen is good, will match all you want, is in your budget, very good build quality. You can configure it with an SSD also.

 

[rapids]

First, if you think Dell had poor warranty support, you do not want to buy from outside your country. Anything bought in the US will have to be shipped there for support with every warranty agreement I know off. Anytime you buy outside of the models available where you live, you are now in grey market area, and any support will not be easy to get.

Lenovo X260 with the FHD screen is good, will match all you want, is in your budget, very good build quality. You can configure it with an SSD also.

Thank you for the suggestion. I have looked at it. However, The X260 has the low power processors which may not be adequate for computational software purposes which is why I was looking to buy quad core options.

I agree, buying from outside the country is not a good option. However, right now a lot of configurations are not available here and what are available are sold at a very steep differential price.

Thanks.

 

[nemesis1300]

I am afraid that you are requesting too much from an ultra portable device. At that screen size it is going to be very difficult to find something that will have 4 cores and be in that price range (unless you are looking into older devices). You say computational software purposes but how much power do you actually NEED? What CPU do you currently have on your system?