off topic, but I have been looking to get a new laptop and could use some opinions. My past laptop purchases have been pretty much a failure as I always opted f

off topic, but I have been looking to get a new laptop and could use some opinions. My past laptop purchases have been pretty much a failure as I always opted for large 'desktop replacement' style laptops which in the end basically defeat the purpose of having a laptop in the first place. This time, I want to make sure my laptop is portable and lasts a while on battery. I know tons of developers love the MBP but I am having a hard time reconciling the 1000ish dollar difference between equivalent windows based machines, along with the fact that I am not a big fan of apple and will be putting Linux on whatever machine I get regardless. I guess my real question is, is there anyone out there who has tried both sides of the spectrum and can speak to whether any 'ultrabooks' can compare to the MBP in terms of screen quality, portability, and power. Or should I just bite the bullet and go for a MBP. My main use cases are standard development stuff. Relatively resource hungry Jet brains IDE, virtualization, etc. Any opinions are appreciated.