What is the best (ultra/)portable laptop for a business student/investment banker?

Here are the http://colleen-northcutt.posterous.com/3-ultraportables-to-keep-an-eye-out-for . And I hope it helps.

You're looking for an ultrabook! http://www.slant.co/topics/2578/~ultrabooks-under-1000  has some good comparisons for ultrabooks, which are portable, high-performance, and with a sleek design. http://www.slant.co/topics/103/viewpoints/3/~laptops-for-programming-under-1-500~13-macbook-air-2015 if you're okay with the Mac OS (but maybe wait a few months for the rumored update to go on the market), http://www.slant.co/topics/2578/viewpoints/2/~ultrabooks-under-1000~dell-xps-13-2015 for Windows.

In this day and age of near commoditised PCs, I wouldn't agonise over specs that much. I think it is just a question of PC vs Mac vs Linux for you. You have a budget in mind already, so just resist the temptation when being upsold on the various components by the vendors. Caveat emptor. I've had positive vibes with Dell's products before, and some of my friends tell me that the newer INSPIRON series do indeed last 4 hours on battery with wifi. I have a TOSHIBA satellite now, and while it is good enough for medium duty computing tasks, the battery lasts 2 hours tops without being plugged in. So, along with the VAIO, you may look into Dell as well. That's my recommendation. You mentioned Wall Street as your Summer address, and since Wall Street prizes functionality over form, most interactions would take place in the Windows environment (?). Also, I concur with @Bert Cattoor, that the development ecosystem for Excel+VBA+plugins on Windows is vastly improved over the Mac environment. There is a new plugin on the block for Win-Excel that allows Python code to be embedded into Excel... https://datanitro.com/. You might impress your colleagues with that ;-) So, were I in your position, I would opt for Windows for compatibility, data exchange, interoperability, etc.  e.g., SPSS, MINITAB, etc., etc. Ubuntu Linux allows you to install a dual boot Linux image onto a Windows PC, so you can always fall back on that for intensive programming and number crunching tasks (NumPy, R, a lot of C++ libraries, etc.). This is such a breeze compared to the days of "Cygwin" that I used to struggle with. With massive HDDs these days, you can use this option if you prefer. Finally, if you can manage to fit a 3D-graphics card in your budget, then by all means do so. Quite a few computational libraries these days take advantage of the graphics card's GPU's processing power for their number crunching, and that might be a neat thing for you. EDIT: Here's an example of GPU utilising Java compiler https://github.com/pcpratts/rootbeer1 http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/Releases/NVIDIA-Contributes-CUDA-Compiler-to-Open-Source-Community-7d0.aspx HTH.

MacBook Airs are definitely your best bet for longest battery life and durability - Macs are built to last, in both ways, with high-quality materials such as aluminium and the best build quality, and are the solidest systems of all, easily lasting at least 3-5 years, if not longer. It'll work out cheaper than having to get new Windows laptops more frequently, and far less effort, hassle, and frustration, and save you from wasting a lot of time since you won't have to keep on transferring all your files and programs to and set up a new computer every couple of years. New, faster models should be coming out in April-July though, so if you can I'd wait a bit until they come out. Office for Mac is no problem - in fact, Microsoft initially created Excel, Word, and Office for Mac before they did for Windows! The Mac OS X versions come out a few months later than the Windows ones - the latest version is Office for Mac 2011, which is fully compatible with Office for Windows 2010 and earlier versions of Office for both Mac and Windows. You can also run the whole Windows operating system on Macs, either booting separately or on top of Mac OS X. You can get Mini DisplayPort to VGA, DVI, or HDMI adapters for compatibility with projectors and displays - VGA is the most common/the universal input on projectors. A review: http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/16/2491224/apple-macbook-air-review-13-inch-mid-2011

Looks like you've had a lot of good suggestions here. mentioned he had some luck with some Dell products. And, I'm glad to hear it! If you're interested in taking a look at the ultrabook options Dell has, visit this link. http://www.dell.com/au/p/xps-laptops At Dell we strive to have an option that works for everyone. Hope this helps point you in a direction to look!

As a student/business person, you will need a laptop that is very flexible, portable, fast, high storage capacity and many others. I've gone through the web looking for such laptops and I came across a 2-in-1 touch screen laptop called theNewest HP X360 Convertible 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop and what stands out is its flexibility (gives you the ability to use it as both a laptop and a table). Isn't that what a student/business man needs? Check this laptop out here http://milkywaypc.com/the-best-2-in-1-touchscreen-laptop

I would recommend Lenovo YogaPad or Microsoft Surface Pro for mobility or something from the Dell Inspiron or Latitude line for more serious computing