Seeking a Laptop/Notebook/Ultrabook with specific characteristics

[Michael Berkowitz]

I've hunted on Amazon, Newegg and elsewhere but surprisingly haven't found what I want for a reasonable price, so I'm turning to you folks for help:

Here are the specs that are important to me:

~15.6"
>= i5 or equivalent
>= 500GB HDD
>= 64GB SDD (I want the OS on the SDD); I'd gladly settle for a unit that I can add an SDD to, like with an mSATA connection, but it has to be able to boot off it.
>= 4GB RAM

I'm flexible about everything else. The thing that makes it hard to find is the SDD, though I find that weird because it makes such a difference and the technology is there.

Thanks in advance for taking the time.

Michael

 

[Maziar]

How much do you want to spend ?

 

[Michael Berkowitz]

Certainly under $1,000. Frankly I think something should be available with the specs I need for under $750, but all I've seen so far are souped-up gaming machines for around $1,500 and up.

 

[Maziar]

Can you live with a SSD only laptop? (use an external HDD for storing photos,music,etc.) I'm asking because usually aside from gaming notebooks,it's hard to find a laptop with 2 drive slots(especially within your price range)

 

[Michael Berkowitz]

In theory I could do that, but from what I've heard (and I realize this is anecdotal) there's some question as to the long-term viability of flash memory as primary storage. I've heard that the technology doesn't do so well with repeated writes...

 

[Maziar]

That's not entirely true.It really depends on the SSD model and the chip used in it
Anyway,this ASUS VivoBook is a decent choice and you can upgrade it's SSD later on
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231324
Or this Toshiba(HDD only though)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216541
and this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216578

The later 2 are better than the ASUS IMO and if you want,you can remove the ODD and install SSD

 

[Michael Berkowitz]

Thanks again. I'll look into those.