Dell Laptop Options

I have been evaluating getting a new computer and have been looking at a few options? I want something small enough to travel with and good battery life.

Option 1
Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Series Touch $863
Window 8.1
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U processor
1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
8GB 2 DIMM (2x4GB) DDR3L 1600Mhz

Option 2
Dell Inspiron 15R Non-Touch $881
Window 7
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U processor
1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
8GB 2 DIMM (2x4GB) DDR3L 1600Mhz

Option 3
Dell Inspiron 14 7000 Series Touch $1028
Window 8.1
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4500U processor
500GB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive + 32GB mSATA Solid State Drive
8GB 2 DIMM (2x4GB) DDR3L 1600Mhz


My biggest Questions?
Windows 8.1 I have heard so much negative that I am concerned changing over. If I can’t stand it could I install window 7 instead.

How much difference will 32GB SSD make and how would I best use it. I would assume I would install light room and the catalog there. Would Windows come installed on the SSD. Also with only 500G hard drive, will that affect overall performance or will the SSD drive make up for external storage.

What else do I need to think about?

Are there better option that what I am looking at in the same price range for a laptop?

Windows 8 is defiantly an acquired taste; there's some good tings and some bad things about it. You can install an after market patch to make Windows act more like 7. If you stay with 8.1 you are going to want to watch some YouTube tutorials to make sure you can find your way around. Evan as a seasoned IT professional, I stumbled around for a few days before getting used to it. If you already have Windows 7, and like it, then yes, you can just install that instead - but be prepared to go driver hunting at the Dell site.

Better to buy an after market SSD in the 256GB range if you're into performance or a Scorpio Black if you want OK speed with larger capacity.

As far as the laptops you posted, I have no clue which is better. The line of processors isn't very impressive so don't expect it to chew through large MP images like a desktop CPU. I have an HP Spectre with an i5-4200U and performance is OK as far as ultrabooks go. If you plan on using this laptop a lot, especially for photography, I'd look into the Aspire S7 Professional series. It's probably the best you'll do in this category. I choose the Spectre mainly for writing reports and as an added bonus it came preloaded with Lightroom saving me $75.

Thank you for a reply. After doing some additional research i went in a new direction and got a Dell XPS 15 with i7 processor, 1T Hard Drive + 32GB SSD, 16 GB ram. The screen is said to be better than the retina screens. Maybe after getting the new system i can write a short review.

After researching the Larger SSD drives it was my conclusion that while they help, it not the most important thing for the speed. I just need to decide how i will use the smaller SSD my system has.

I am assuming i will struggle through Win 8 for a few days before i can get it to look more like Win 7.