Which laptop should I choose??

[palpatine7]

Okay I am a college student (student discounts) with my classes beginning very soon and I would like to purchase a new laptop. My budget for the laptop would be at a max $1,100. Right now I own a little 10" netbook with an Atom processor in it that just doesn't perform or run well at all.

I would like the new laptop to be very portable and lightweight. Maybe a 13", 14", or 15". Not any 17" too big!

I do a little light gaming like World of Warcraft or the new Star Wars: Old Republic. I would at least like to run these games on the laptop.

Excellent battery life is important to me, as I don't want to carry around a charger everywhere I go. Maybe at least 5hrs if not more..

Here are some laptops I have looked at so far and they do peek my interest:

MacBook Pro 13" Core i5 2.5Ghz
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/h [...] pro/select

Samsung Series 7 14" Core i5 2.5Ghz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834131259

Alienware m14x 14" Core i5
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m14x-r2/pd.aspx

Sony Vaio T Series 13.3" Core i5
https://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/s [...] 1644852023

Please help me choose which one would best suit my needs..I am really torn on this. Also if you have a different you can suggest, do so. I am always up for suggestions. Any help or advice would be so great!!
Thank you!!!

[Zygomorphic]

ASUS U36 series would be perfect for you! They are very light, do some light gaming, and the battery life is all day - with a full-voltage (Read "fast") i5 processor. Best of all, they come with the best forum support in the industry!

Assessment of your listings - only differences (All should be pretty fast):
MacBook Pro: Expensive, hard to upgrade
Samsung: Should be good - only real one to consider in my book.
Alienware: Over-priced, get a real gaming machine if that is what you want.
Sony: This is apple-knockoff, even worse than Apple.

[cl-scott]

This might be heresy for someone in my position to say, but I am very anti-laptop when it comes to college. The idea sounds good at first, but it doesn't work as well in execution. A lot of lecture halls and smaller classrooms are not going to be equipped for laptops, taking notes on a laptop just doesn't work as well unless you've built up a lot of muscle memory for various word processor keyboard shortcuts, and most importantly, unless you are EXTREMELY disciplined, you will end up just wasting time on Facebook or Twitter instead of listening to the lecture if there's a wifi connection in the room.

Part of your tuition will be to pay for computers in labs on campus, so use those for doing homework, and then you can have a nice (preferably Asus) desktop in your dorm room or apartment. However, when you're in class, you should be focused on the class. There will be plenty of other distractions, believe me, you don't need to add a laptop to the mix. College is only getting more expensive these days, so you want to get in and out as fast as possible. Having to retake a class or anything else will cost you hundreds of dollars. At most I would take something like a Kindle DX if you can get ebook versions of your textbooks. Also, a trick I didn't learn until pretty close to the end of my college career: Don't buy any books until the second week of class. Half the time they never use them, you might drop a class, or who knows what might happen. There won't be as many used books, but if one or two of your classes never use the textbooks, you'll easily save money even having to buy new. In any event, keep a very clear separation between on-campus life and off-campus life. When you're on campus, be focused on school and school alone, then when off-campus you can relax and have fun.

[HalloweenWeed]

ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH52 Intel Core i5 2557M(1.70GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory 128GB SSD HDD Intel HD Graphics Ultrabook

usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/ASUS_ZENBOOK_UX31E/

Or, if you need more HDD space:

ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB51 Intel Core i5 3317U(1.70GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD Intel HD Graphics Ultrabook

Note: These are not for serious gaming. If you need a notebook for serious gaming, you also need more $$$.
I have the UX31E, but the 256GB SSD ver that I have is over your budget. It is awesome. Would be perfect for classroom use. However at some point you may want to consider buying an external DVD writer. You need one that will work with only one USB plug plugged in, without an external power source:

HP USB 2.0 8X External Slot-load Slim Multiformat DVD Writer Model DVD560S