Buying an ultrabook need help

[jonnyboy0123]

Hi all I'm buying a laptop preferably an ultrabook for school mainly, work eventually, and gaming sometimes. I like the style of ultrabooks because they are portable and fast.


1. What is your budget?

$1,000-$1,800(including warranty)

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

Since ultrabooks usually start around 13.3" i'd say 13.3"-15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?

1366 x 768 pixels

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

I have a nice gaming desktop so this would be purely portable

5. How much battery life do you need?

minimum 5 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)?

I might occasionally play games on this so Low-Medium settings (WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Skyrim)

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

I will be programming on this computer, watching hd videos, writing papers, and gaming.

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

256SSD can't go lower and would prefer not having a hybrid or regular HDD

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

www.newegg.com
www.amazon.com

not sure if there are better sites to buy from

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

As long as possible (minimum 3 years)

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

Don't need an optical drive but don't care if one is included

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 will buy from any brand that has a good reputation for customer service and quality laptops. That being said, I will not buy from HP as my previous laptop was a DV9000 and it was awful and so was HP's customer service.

Will buy either Mac or PC (ASUS, ACER, LENOVO, SAMSUNG, etc..)

13. What country do you live in?

United States

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I was originally comparing ultrabooks to see if I could get one around $1200. I narrowed it down to ASUS UX31, Lenovo U300, Toshiba Porteige Z835, and Acer Aspire S3. After lots of research I decided the Asus UX31 had the best quality but the Macbook air was a little better. The Asus UX32VD is barley coming out and has a dedicated video card (good for videos/gaming which I will use the computer for) but only has 4g of RAM and a 500GB HDD. I would have to buy more RAM and a 256GB SSD, open up the computer and replace those (Voiding warranty and no experience doing either). I could also go for a macbook air with 256ssd and 3 year warranty for $1700.

Any input is helpful thank you.

 

[nhasian]

be careful, in most ultrabooks you cannot upgrade the ram or hard disk as they are part of the motherboard. Check out the new Vizio ultrabooks

 

[jonnyboy0123]

The new Vizio ultrabooks look nice. To clarify I want the laptop to come with 256GB SSD and at least 4GB of RAM so I don't have to upgrade it until i'm ready to buy a new computer. The problem I found with the ASUS UX32VD is its going to be the best ultrabook on the market, but you have to open it up and update the ram and replace the HDD with SSD in order for it to be viable which voids the warranty. I would prefer not to pay $1800 for parts and a laptop just to have to open it up and possibly break it to update it.


Edit: After some research i'm okay with a 500GB HDD over a SSD but preferably a hybrid.

What do you all think of?

http/www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00863L2MS/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_g147_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1V5H93JCDNDAMZWBHDK2&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

since its upgradeable I can use it for what I need it for then throw in more RAM and an SSD. Or should I wait for more ivy bridge ultrabooks to come out?