Sub-$850 business laptop

[Jpistone]

Hey all, I'm looking for a solid business laptop for $850 or less. I'm interested in build quality, reliability, security and connectivity features over speed, graphics, etc.

1. What is your budget?
$850 or less.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Nothing smaller than 14".

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Nothing specifically - anything that won't make staring at source code painful.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
No.

5. How much battery life do you need?
At least 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)?
Won't be used for gaming.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
- Programming (web languages, java)
- Run VMs
- Extensive work with android emulators
- Penetration testing (wired and wireless)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Not a huge deal - 200+ gigs.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
None come to mind, I'm open to suggestions.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2+ years, must be built to last.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Don't care.

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.
Will buy from:
- ASUS
- Lenovo
- Toshiba
- Samsung (maybe)

Reasons: good track record; generally consistent build quality, business oriented from what I understand.

Will not buy from:
- Dell / Alienware
- Acer
- Especially not HP
- Gateway

Reasons: personal experience with these brands has been poor at best; Poor build quality historically;

[Tl;Dr: I won't buy HP.]
Lately I've noticed some talk of how HP has improved their products, and frankly I don't believe it. This brand is notoriously bad a few years ago, and a large company doesn't simply start doing things differently without a significant upheaval of their market strategy and manufacturing process. I haven't heard or seen anything like this happen with HP (correct me if I'm wrong), so the only conclusion I can draw is that they've seriously upped their PR campaign.
[/Tl;Dr]

13. What country do you live in?
Canada

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
- Should have decent hardware security features (Lenovo & Toshiba seem to advertise this... Not sure if ASUS has anything similar).

 

[hpfreak]

http/ncix.com/products/?sku=73011&vpn=215129U&manufacture=Lenovo&promoid=1034
This is a lenovo laptop, Core i7, up to 5 hrs of battery (on paper), overall decent specs.
But I'd note that it has 4 GB of RAM, considering that it runs 730cad, I'd strongly advise that if you do go with it, that you upgrade the ram to 8 GB. (There are 2 memory slots, 1 is occupied already with the 4 GB stick).
As for security, it does have a kensington lock, but not a fingerprint scanner. The major downside I see is the graphics, it has an intergrated Intel GPU, even though you won't be gaming- virtual machines will suffer because of the lack of vram. Also, the laptop- as most do.. does not have a packet injection capabilities.. you'll need to use an external card for that.



http/www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214962CVF

This Toshiba laptop also sports a Core i7, 15.6" screen, and the battery life is rated at 4 hours. out of the box it has 6 GB, which is better than the laptop above, but it also runs for 770cad, specs are about the same besides that. But RAM is expandable up to 16 GB (8GBx2 slots), you'd have to get rid of both sticks that come inside the laptop to make use of it's capabilities, but in the long run, you'd really benefit from the ability to expand up to 16 GB opposed to 8 GB on the Lenovo.


Good luck,