I'm thinking about getting a new laptop. Mine is several years old, and while it's quite serviceable, it boots really slowly, and it doesn't like to run a guest Ubuntu OS under Oracle VirtualBox. Also, I foresee more compiling in my future, even though of late I've been rather truant about working on my own through my Haskell book. I will say no more about the R book. I don't game, because it is addicting, and therefore bad for me.

I tend to try to get as much life as possible out of a computer, because I am poor. I have heard good things about ASUS. I see more Linux in my future, but I have to have Windows and since Windows tends to come preinstalled, I expect it would be my native, host OS.

I'd like to spend $500, but could (and probably will) stretch to $700.

What could I expect to get for that, and what would you suggest.

Trent.