What Notebook Should I Buy? Please recommend a few models/manufacturers :)

[dfry]

What is your budget?
$700-$1000 CAD

What country will you be buying this in?
Canada, United States, Online

What size notebook do you prefer?
Mainstream (15 - 16-inch screen)

Would you consider a refurbished laptop?
No

What are the primary tasks you need this notebook for?
Web Surfing, Office and Productivity Software, Listening to Music, Photo Editing, Video Chat and Conference, Movie Streaming and Viewing, Output Video to TV or Large Monitor, 3D CAD Design, Casual Gaming, Graphic Intense 3D Gaming

Primarily used for 3D CAD Design and MS Office products. As an Engineering student, it will be packed back and forth to university on a daily basis. Reasonable weight and battery life are important. A disk drive would be used but is not required.

What games will you be playing?
World of Warcraft but as a bonus. This is not the main requirement of the laptop. It would be nice to have the capability though.

Where will you be using this laptop?
Will be used different places

How many hours of battery life do you need?
4-6

Will you be buying online or in store?
online

Which OS do you prefer?
Windows 7

List the screen resolutions that interest you:
High Resolution (1600 x 900)
Max Resolution (1920 x 1080)

Do you prefer a glossy or matte screen?
Glossy or Matte is fine

Is the laptops design important to you?
No

Approximately what date will you be buying this laptop?
Around 09/08/2012

How long do you want this laptop to last?
3 years

How much storage capacity do you need?
640 GB

Are you interested in SSD for storage?
Maybe

Do you want a built-in optical drive, what type?
DVD Burner

[danielotero]

For this price, I think the better options would be Sager/Clevo notebooks. The ones I recommend are the NP6350 and the NP9130. The first has GTX660m and the second GTX670m, however the first one costs $920~ and the second costs $1050~, so you can add more things to the 6350. Also the Sager is coming with free 750GB/7200RPM HDD and 16GB RAM. Hope I could help.
Daniel.

[iViNtaGe]

^Yeah Sager's are nice. But they don't have so great battery life/weight and use GPUs that won't be optimal for AutoCAD. Keep in mind that the GTX 660 uses Kepler architecture which Nvidia nerfed when it comes to computing. Not sure if this is also true for GTX 670m and GTX 675m because they are just rebranded Fermi cards.

But if you just want to play WoW and AutoCAD is more important, look for professional graphics. Right now Lenovo is selling their Thinkpad W530 with a Quad-Core i7 and Nvidia K1000m and 1600x900 screen. There are also options from Dell Precision and HP Elitebook which may be cheaper. If not the Thinkpad T430/T530 is a lot more affordable. You can get a T530 with matte 1080p screen, NVS 5400m, and an i5 processor for just under 1000 USD. From what I know, the NVS 5400m does 25% better than HD 4000 in games and a lot better in AutoCAD. Lenovo support is also better than Clevo's.