Hi,
You missed the major things to mention :
1- Size of LCD ... 11 inch ? 12? 13?14?15?17?
2- Type of LCD , TN? MVA ? IPS (the best viewing angle)
3- Resolution of LCD ... 1366x768? 1600x900 ? 1920x1080?
4- light and slim or heavy and powerful , or in the middle of this and that?
5- battery life important or not? battery removable or not (for carrying extra battery) ?
6- do you want dedicated VGA that can switch with HD4000 for battery life or not ?
7- GO windows 8 on laptops it makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE especially with touch screen !
8- Lenovo Thinkpad are better than anything from HP and DELL ... you will never regret using a Thinkpad !
9- GO SSD , it is CHEAP today ! and within your 1000$ budget .
10- do you want ultra low voltage i5 ? or normal i5 ?
11- why do you need 3x usb3 ? you will miss alot of good notebooks if you insist on 3 usb3 ports .. most have 2 usb3
Please reply fast :)
Edit:
check those , are the best IMO
1- Lenovo Thinkpad T430/T530 series
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...ef-id=products
2- Lenovo thinkpad Twist series
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...1EC325&redir=y
you will never regret using a Thinkpad !!!
as for harddisk and SSD , you can get a 256G SSD cheap today and replace the mechanical drive ..