Laptop for college (business degree)

Ok, so I am going to college next year, and I want a good, fast, reliable, budget-friendly, and good looking laptop for college. I pasted this from a thread that I didn't know was closed when I responded. Any advice is useful. Just to you an idea of what I'm interested in, I want to say that I like both the Dell 3350, and the Asus u46.
1. What is your budget? $500-1000

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13-14in

3. What screen resolution do you want? anything (maybe a matte screen)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? -both, something with some juice, but more importantly portable for college

5. How much battery life do you need? +6hrs

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)? if anything, low

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) beastly word editing, photo editing, and probably little to no video editing

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 100gb-500gb (either a fast HHD, or SSD)

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. no preference

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3-6 years  

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? maybe nothing (not blue-ray)

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. Dell for dependability, asus or hp for value, not acer, toshiba, or gateway, not sure about sony or lenovo, ect

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. college, business degree