Background:
I work with a variety of statistical analysis software packages at my job, and will start attending graduate school in the next year or two (and will most likely be working with the same or similar software), but I obviously can't take my work computer with me when I leave for school. I'm good at the type of programming I do, but am an idiot about computer hardware, so any advice on the kind of specs that matter and those that don't would be appreciated.
Current work computer setup:
Windows 7 pro, i-7 processor, 16GB ram, 64-bit
Other stuff:
-New one has to be able to run the pro version of windows (8 or 7 is negotiable to me, but I welcome input on this too. I don't have any problem with mac or linux, but I don't have the knowledge to do all the partitioning stuff to make this usable with stats software)
-I would prefer a laptop (smaller (<15in) and lighter is better for transportation reasons), and
-I refuse to purchase an HP laptop after a more than one motherboard failure that they refused to acknowledge was a known defect.
I don't care about screen resolutions or graphics or anything like that, outside of the stats stuff I pretty only use chrome and word, no gaming or video editing or huge collections of music or anything like that.
My searches have come up with options in the $1800-$2100 range, but i'm hoping it is possible to spend less than that. There is no rush, I'm looking at a 6+ month timeline to save and research this. Thoughts?