What kind of laptop/laptop features to get for these needs?

ASUS laptop. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230987 Core i5 3230M(2.60GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 610M http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230416 Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 14.1" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 620M Two HP that can be customized to what you need, starting at $530 http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/B5Y73AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ000046kL18cI;sid=9zDf3cQuLykz6ZWxCIeGSR0hwywaiPAyMmXy0Rex_etSdk9VLxt6fHwh?HP-ENVY-dv6z-7200-Notebook-PC http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/B6C46AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-Pavilion-g6z-2200-Notebook-PC Your choice of 5 colors These are not customizable http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC 17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) Buying advice Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve. Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them. Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system. Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom. Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company. Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers. Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them. ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it. Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power. Tablets are just toys to me. They can not handle the work load like Laptops and Desktops and do not have the storage capacity you will end up needing. Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen. Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate. My experience with them are limited because the few I worked on made me think they were designed in such a way as it would take a blow torch and a jack hammer just to disassemble them. Choose wisely.