I've got a lenovo T520 with the 9-cell battery, 8GB ram, sandy bridge processor plus an nvidia mobile graphics card (i can use that or switch to the intel 3000

I've got a lenovo T520 with the 9-cell battery, 8GB ram, sandy bridge processor plus an nvidia mobile graphics card (i can use that or switch to the intel 3000 if i want to save power), cost me about 1200 bucks all said an done. Got an HDD instead of SSD, so add a few hundred for a more pure comparison if you want.