I agree with ASUS and MSI, I have one of each MSI steel series is rock solid and beat the heat ASUS had always treated me right and also fights the heat well. I retired in the Philippines and heat, humidity and voltage issues play havoc on cheaper computers are all electronics for that matter, it literally burns them out in no time. Having higher end really pays off for me here, both have outlasted other brands I have owned. If in the third world an AVR or AVR/batter backup is a most to protect your investment.
I just ordered one today (HP ZBook 17 G3). I did an unhealthy amount of research before buying, but then I like hardware. I narrowed it down to two, based on specs, price, and a few other factors. HP ZBook 17 G3 Workstation <- review link Dell Precision 7710 Workstation <- review link I was determined to buy something "solid, professional grade", and not a consumer line. Plan to keep this for a while. Buy manufacturer refurbished, always. You lose nothing (or very little) and gain a lot of price advantage. This is what refurbished means according to HP & Dell. HP gives a 1 year warranty, and Dell gives a full 3 year warranty. Both warranty is next business day onsite - doesn't get any better. My shortlist was ZBook i7-6700HQ, 17.3 inch display, 1920x1080 resolution Precision i7-6820HQ, 17.3 inch display, 1920x1080 resolution I will upgrade all RAM & disks myself, so not really care what came with the machine. As little as possible to keep the price low as OEMs charge about double for RAM & Disks. This thread has many recommendation about 4k displays and what not, and I think that is not good advise for a trading laptop where the screen size is 17.3" max. 1600x900 is low for a 17.3" display. 1920x1080 is perfect. Let me list the disadvantages of a display > 1080p Costs a lot more Going to make exactly zero difference in your 2D charts Windows struggles with scaling over 1080p, especially if you use win7 Your GPU has to work a lot harder to pump out those extra pixels (extra fan noise and heat) And a good laptop with a proper GPU will still drive one or more very large 4k external monitor very happily. That's the one you want to watch your 60fps porn on, right? In the end, the reasons I chose the ZBook was: Ability to add a total of 4 internal drives (2 HDD, 2 M.2 SSD). Dell has 1 HDD, 2 M.2 SSD This one is big: Has 2 thunderbolt 3 ports over Dell's 1. And HP's implementation is more mature HP also specifically state how many external displays you can use. See the manual. Long story short, you can have SIX active displays (including the laptop screen) driven by this laptop, without using a docking station. Your multi-monitor setup is all taken care of without any dock and all the instabilities that introduce Precision 7710 has a horrible keyboard layout. I can not forgive them for placing the Home & End keys on arrow keys that are accessible by using Fn key. Not gonna happen I exclusively used HP laptops so far and have nothing to complain about. Except they breaking hinges and whatnot due to clear mishandling, and so far I have only bought "consumer" grade ones. ZBook is military spec approved I chose to forego the extra 2 year warranty and a slightly faster CPU due to these factors. I will post some pics & price, vendor details later when I get it. I paid $1045 total for the following: Windows 10 Pro Operating System 17.3 1920x1080 screen I7 6700HQ 2.6 ghz Processor 256 SSD 8 GB Memory Wireless + BT + usual wabcam & other crap Quadro M1000M is the graphics card When I get it, it is getting 16 GB more RAM & the SSD is going from 256 to 512 and there will be a 2 TB HDD. Sadly this doesn't have a backlit keyboard. That is a $26 eBay fix. If I spec-ed this machine out at HP, this would have run around $2.5k with tax. Would have gained me an extra 2 year warranty for $1.5k extra Read the reviews at notebookcheck.net. They know their shit. They have a top 10 list in various categories as well.
Why not go with ASUS laptops, what are you really loosing here ? It's a great a bit expensive (but not too much) brand which is totally fine with all else. I have ASUS laptop which is like 7 years old and all fine with it completely and totally. Save something if you can.
The OP hasn't been on this site in over 2 years. You win the ET annual "most-outdated-tech-thread-bump-of-the-year" award, issued bi-monthly.