Portable laptop for freshman biomedical engineering student

[Marith]

I will be a freshman this fall studying biomedical engineering / pre-med, and I'm trying to find a laptop/ultrabook. This is my first time buying a laptop, so I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions. I'll primarily be using it for note-taking, group projects, presentations, music, and other general word processing.

• 
  ■ Budget is up to $1000
  ■ I'd prefer a 13-15" screen
  ■ I will probably not be doing much 3D work, and I have a decent desktop that I'll be using for gaming and most processor-intensive work.
  ■ I'll have to haul the laptop around a very large and hilly campus, so the lighter the better.
  ■ Battery life is probably the biggest priority.
  ■ I'll be drawing diagrams and writing formulas a lot, so I'm somewhat interested 2-in-1 hybrid laptops that I can write on with a stylus. Otherwise I'm fine taking notes by hand.

Systems I've been considering:

• 
  ■ Lenovo Yoga 2 2-in-1 (core i5, 4GB RAM, 500 GB HD, $850)
  ■ Lenovo Flex 2 14 (core i5, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, $820)
  ■ Acer Aspire M (core i5, 6 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD + 20 GB SSD, $800)

 

[iceclock]

do u require alot of ram and cpu power?

 

[faalin]

have a look at this one..

http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?cid=6&id=423

MSI GE60 15.6" 1080p screen core i5, GTX 760m, 8gb ram, 750gb HDD 5.28 lbs


I have its big brother the GT60 and does very well with travel and regular every day office work along with lan parties once a month.

 

[Marith]

How's the battery life on yours?

have a look at this one..

http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?cid=6&id=423

MSI GE60 15.6" 1080p screen core i5, GTX 760m, 8gb ram, 750gb HDD 5.28 lbs


I have its big brother the GT60 and does very well with travel and regular every day office work along with lan parties once a month.

 

[Marith]

I'm not entirely sure what I'll need given what I'm using it for; I'm thinking 4-8 GB RAM and i5.

do u require alot of ram and cpu power?

 

[faalin]

depends on what im doing, Hard gaming I always have it plugged in, I can get a good 5-6 hours out of it with light gaming ( Nintendo emulator ) and watching a few movies during flight. regular office work can go a full 8 hour day without plugging it in.

 

[iceclock]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834313740

best for ur price range if u want portability and gaming capabilities

999$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152405

theres this but its 17 inches.