I'm on the same advice about pc power and would easily choose an i7 with dedicated GPU/RAM... I need power to run production suites for work (Corel and Adobe) so I wouldn't consider anything below i5 nowadays... the real point is that actual business laptops, at an affordable price range, are mostly not easily accessible for HDD and Ram... the actual machine I'm working on has access bays to easily swap HDD as I need it! (having to unassemble the whole machine just to replace HDD or upgrade ram in NOT an option!!!)...
Most specs from Lenovo/Acer/ASUS suit 98% of my needs but restricting the range to have Win7, AntiGlare Display (I can't work long hours in front of a gloss/shiny display anymore, my eyes hurts!!!... I know, I'm getting old!

) and access bays as stated before point me to a price range I can't actually afford (MACs are not an option too)...