Nice. Does that one have the dGPU?

I'm very happy with the similar, but slightly cheaper (both cash and build) E5470

Yes, you apparently can't buy the i7 models without it.

I purchased directly from Lenovo; I was able to leverage a "friends and family" discount and an accommodating sales rep that saved me over $300 on the laptop's "on-line" price and $100 on the two docking stations.

I may have been able to do better, but I'm satisfied with what I got

Unfortunately my option selections resulted in a custom build, so I may not see it before the beginning of June ...

Very fast delivery is one of the enjoyable side effects of ordering from the Dell Outlet, although they've raised their rates on 2nd-day and next-day shipping quite a bit in the last year.

The best laptop in 2016 is the ThinkPad T420s upgraded to FHD. I will have on soon, will report back.

Totally depends on your needs; as a general use office/browsing machine, the only real issue with those is that the battery life, while good by 2011 standards, is a bit limited by today's standards.

OTOH, for several of my own uses:
* a T420s CPU wasn't big enough to do my work [software development on large Java and C projects] on when they were new in 2011 (indeed, the then-new i7-2720QM was the first laptop processor fast enough to be a comfortably interchangeable with desktop CPUs in probably 7-8 years)
* While CPU demands have actually gone down a bit (more microservices, fewer huge monoliths of code), the maximum 16gb of memory would be totally inadequate today for the tons-of-JVMs, often-in-containers test model.
* The iGPU on those (I don't think there's a dGPU version) were only just OK at the time, but even the next generation ones in the T430s were a huge step forward. I'm not a serious gamer (and you can't get a GPU adequate for serious gaming in a business-grade machine except some absurdly expensive configurations of the workstations*) but it's nice to be able to play at least some contemporary games at say, "medium" graphics rather than not playing at all.

Yes, the keyboard ergonomics are better than present 'island' or 'chiclet' style ones, but there are also some very nice mechanical travel keyboards which are far better than anything anyone has put into a reasonable sized laptop.

(* I thought about getting one of these, but realized that for the cost of one of those, I could get a business laptop AND a decent if not high end gaming laptop, and have money left over.)

I'd easily take the T460 over that. The T460s compromised on battery life, but with the T460 you can have a hot-swappable 6-cell second battery and FHD at about the same weight as the older T440s.

The "s" (slim) designation isn't nearly as much of a differentiator these days as it was five years ago.

If I remember the objection, it was over the keyboard and other ergonomic design issues.

I'm definitely not fond of clickpads either, and am very glad Dell hasn't gone that way on most of their professional machines.

I've had my T460p for just over a week now and I'm very happy. The 72Wh battery gives me 5-7 hours of light-to-moderate use without any significant power-management tweaking, and the WQHD display blows away the HD+ display on the T420 I just retired.

The keyboard layout isn't perfect, but the feel and responsiveness is excellent. The clickpad is a huge improvement over the trackpad, at least in my experience.

Processor performance has been great so far. It stays snappy with multiple virtual machines running.

I needed to upgrade the firmware in the two docking stations I purchased along with the laptop to get the dock-connected displays to work reliably. The only other hardware issue I had was with the 1TB drive in the old laptop; I was hoping that I could just clone and sysprep /generalize it but the 2TB SSD I cloned it to wouldn't even boot in the T460p. So I cloned the "stock" 500GB hard drive to the 2TB drive, swapped them, and reinstalled my core software suite (Office, Project, Visio and VMWare).

I then discovered that the 10 month old 1TB Samsung SSD from my old laptop had developed some hard errors; I was unable to copy one of my VMs off and had to restore it from a backup. The S.M.A.R.T data shows multiple FAILs. The drive is headed back to Samsung for "service," whatever that means with an SSD. It does make me wonder a bit about the 2TB model I installed in my new notebook, though ...

Love having a backlit keyboard, and a standard-size HDMI port is great for projectors and hotel-room TVs.

All in all, quite pleased!

a lightweight laptop (< 3lbs), min 12" screen (the bigger the better), min i5 processor (i7 would be better), 8 GB RAM, min 500GB storage (SSD would be great) and around the $1,000 price point?

Touch screen is absolutely not necessary.

I will be using it to simultaneously run a stock market streamer as well as about 10-15 streaming stock charts + MS Outlook + about 3 different browsers

So far I have looked at the Lenovo T460p with an i5 processor that seems to fit my budget whereas a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 series is about $850 with an i7 processor. Is it fair to compare these two models? Are there any others that I should be looking at?

Your comments and suggestions would be much appreciated...thanks

The T460p doesn't align with your weight requirements, unfortunately. The T460s comes closer, and should be feasible at your price point.

I'm not knowledgeable with the current Dell lineup (burned too many times in the past), but I'm sure others here will chime in.

Those are two totally non-comparable models.

The basic fact you need to consider first is that "i5" and "i7" processors right now come in two different varieties, dual-core and quad-core; the former are also "U" series (ultra low voltage) and the latter "H" series (regular low-voltage mobile processors.) So there is a big difference in the speed per core.

My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that on the dual-cure U-series processors, the i7 is almost never worth paying extra for. The i5-6300U or i5-6260U are pretty much the only processors to look at on machines with a U series processor (unless extremely price sensitive) -- if you need more performance, moving up to an H series i5 should be the next step, not a U series i7.

The T460p uses H-series quad core processors, and a T460p with an i5-6xxxHQ is going to be hugely faster than the Inspiron with an i7-6500u.

So, first, figure out which line-up of processors you need. If you need the quad-core H series, you will have trouble reaching your weight target; the lightest quad-core systems are around 4lb. The Lenovo T460p and the Dell E5470 (which confusingly sells with both H and U processors; under the skin it is two different machines) are the only two inexpensive(-ish) 14" business machines with H-series processors that I'm aware of, although HP may have snuck one out. There are plentiful lower-end gaming machines with those processors in the $1000-ish range, but the weight is going to blow hugely past your limit probably around the 6lb mark. There are some very nice 15" thin-and-light workstations from HP and Dell and a couple of consumer manufacturers with Macbook Pro clones (e.g. Dell XPS 15), but they're still around the 4-4.5lb mark and hugely past your budget (usually start around $1500)

In terms of the specific machines, I tend to only follow the business line machines, and have been a bit burned by Dell's consumer products in the past. The Inspiron is from their consumer lines -- it looks reasonably solid. Also, it appears to be a 2-in-1 which if you don't want a touch screen seems like an odd choice: http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-13...in-1-laptop/pd (OTOH, they may have more than one "Inspiron 13 7000 series" -- there is a real 4-digit model number corresponding to the machine -- in that case Inspiron 7368 -- but their present branding hides it. I find thins annoying.)

Dodge DeBoulet's suggestion of the T460s is an excellent one if your budget permits and you want a U-series processor; the X1 Carbon (with several related submodels) would be a good one to look at as well although I'm not sure it's manageable in your budget.

The closest equivalent from the Dell side is the E7470, which is a superb business ultrabook. I'm not sure it's manageable in your budget, though, at least without going to refurbished models

The Dell XPS 13 might be worth looking at on the consumer side. XPS is Dell's "premium" line for consumer machines, and might hold up better than the Inspirons.

If you want a bigger (15.6") screen and can use the U-series ultrabook processors, there are quite a number of 15" ultrabooks around the 4lb mark, and some of them probably around your price range, but that is a sort of machine I have never followed closely enough to have any hope of giving a recommendation.

--

Serious question: can you use a Mac? The Macbook Pro 15" is pretty much the lightest 15" full-power machine (with a quad core) and the rumor has a new, even smaller more compact 15" coming out soon (probably the far side of $2k in a good config, though!)

Dell e7250? Might be over budget though....

Great machines (as is the E7450, same thing basically, but 14"). No longer being sold new by Dell directly; they've gone over entirely to the E7270/E7470 which is not a big difference for most users.

For the person asking the question, I'd recommend the 14" ones -- they're not really much different in price, and still (if just barely) at his weight target and he did say "the bigger the better"

New it would probably have been out of his price range in a decent config (or maybe just barely in budget if he did a RAM and SSD upgrade himself), and the E7270 and E7470 certainly are. OTH, there are a ton of the E7250 and E7450 refurbished on outlet, and definitely in budget for an i5 config if he waits for one of the extremely-frequent sales (twitter @delloutlet is the best way to watch for those), and there are also a whole bunch still out there in retail (both refurb and new remaining stock.)

Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Q&gclsrc=aw.ds

Dodge DeBoulet & nkedel - thanks very much indeed for your comments, which were most informative. I will now go and explore the various options that you (and others) recommended.

If I wanted to stay close to the 3lb weight limit, what is the best laptop that I should aim for - again, touch screen is not important.

As I said, it really depends on what processor you need. It sounds like the weight is a higher priority than the bigger quad-core CPU, and given that:

If you can stretch the budget a little, and you don't see a need to have an upgradeable system, the system I'd encourage you to look at first is the Lenovo X1 Carbon (current is 4th generation with i5-6xxxU processors). At 2.6lbs, I'm fairly sure it's still far and away the thinnest and lightest 14" business ultrabook. You might look and see if there are any refurb or remaining stock 3rd-generation ones with the i5-5xxxU processors.

None of the other ones I'm aware of are quite as light as 3lbs at a 14" screen. If you can stretch the weight limit to 3.25 lbs, the Dell E7470 (or a last-gen E7450) is worth looking at. The T460s (or a last gen T450s) is one step heavier still but still only around 3.5lbs.

The Dell XPS 13 is not a full business notebook, and won't be quite as sturdy as the X1 or the slightly heavier ones above. It's also going to be hard to get the specs you want in your budget: to come in under $1000, you'd need to buy it with a smaller SSD and upgrade yourself. They are nice machines, and incredibly compact.

Any of the 12" business ultrabooks will meet your needs if configured correctly: X260 and E7270 from this generation or the X250/E7250 from the last.

Personally, if I was looking for a new machine like yours, I'd be looking at refurbished Dell E7450 or E7470 from their Outlet. There are some E7470s matching your specs for about $1200, which after the current 25% coupon (and there's practically ALWAYS a coupon; they expire for a few days and then come back) you'd be looking at about $900 before tax and shipping, and with free ground shipping that's under $1000 even in high-tax California (if just barely.)

I was going to suggest getting a base model and upgrading the memory and SSD, but it's not actually any cost savings right now.

The deals on the 12" models are not quite as good; would be around $1100 once you need the 500-512GB SSD. If you needed to to meet your price range, you could get one with a 128GB SSD and then upgrade it yourself (about $150 for an aftermarket SSD; I recommend the Crucial MX200 M.2 2280SS for the E7270) which would be just under $1000 combined.

In my experience, quality control is actually BETTER on refurbished business-line Dells than on new stock; an awful lot of the business machines are corporate returns that were never actually used by an end-user. They come with the same warranty as new.