New notebook for dev?

[_kabal_]

Currently I am running on a Dell XPS-15 L502X, i5-2410M 2.3GHz, 8gig memory, and 500GB harddrive.
It also has a GeForce GT 525M, which works well for games I played/wanted to play (ME3, DA:Origins, Torchlight2, etc)

All in all it has served me well.

Battery life is down to 50 minutes.

I am looking to get a relatively high performance for day to day notebook, and allow me to play games occasionally. 100FPS with 4x AA @ 1080p doesnt matter to me.

So far, I have "narrowed" it down to this:

Dell Inspiron 5547:4th Generation Intel Core i7-4510U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.1 GHz), 15.6in LED Backlit Touch Display with IPS and FHD resolution (1920x1080), AMD Radeon (TM) HD R7 M265 2GB GDDR5, 16GB (2x8Gb) Dual Channel 1600MHz DDR3L, 1TB Serial ATA (5400RPM), Intel Wireless AC 3160, Win 8.1 Single Language 64bit, 3Yr Next Business Day Warranty

That will cost about R13800.

I am indifferent about the touch screen, but am keen on the IPS and 1080p (coming from 1366x768)

One thing i am not 100% sold on is no mini/display port. I would like to in the near future get a 1440p 27", and most of those dont have HDMI inputs supporting that resolution.

The Dell next day is also a huge bonus.


So, if you had about R14K to spend on a notebook, what would you choose.

 

[DominionZA]

I had the L502X for dev work and light gaming. Natural progression took me to the XPS 15 L521X. Massive upgrade, and just makes it into the Intel ultrabook specification.
Love it so much I got 2 of them. And 2 XPS 13's.

The HP Envy also looks like a real sweet machine.

 

[ozziej]

Look for a machine with an SSD or SSHD (hybrid ssd and regular spinning rust). The SSD is worth the upgrade.
I would also not suggest getting that CPU, its only a dual core, and a low TDP dual core at that, so it will be battery efficient, but its going to struggle with compiling and games...

 

[froot]

I've got a Dell E6540 (i7 4800MQ Quad Core with HT) with an SSD and an Intel 4600, with 1080p display, but do take note that these things are rather useless when it comes to games.
If you do want to play the occasional game, make sure you have whatever graphics card you are happy with.