>Kevin,
>
>I had thought like you that a 17" is required for serious use... but daughter got a Macbook Pro last week with the 13.x retina screen and a quick I5 and it's an impressive machine- even the weird Force Touch makes sense. Only issue is HD space: manufacturers still charge a premium but I see Newegg had 1T SSD last week for $350, so the days of $300 extra to go 250G to 512G presumably soon will be gone. Also re your keyboard- not sure if you had a HP chicklet keyboard before? Took me a while to get used to it. Anyway, let us know if your eyes let you down with the smaller screen or any other observations.

My new Spectre x360 I7 is a 256 GB SSD. You're right about space. Again, this isn't my main work machine, it's my mobile machine.

I have 3 active VMs right now (one for the newest CTP of SQL 2016, one for SharePoint 2010, and one for an older version of SQL/VS). I use them on an external SSD USB 3 drive (the Lacie brand) and they are acceptable fast. In some cases, a VM on a fast USB 3 SSD drive might outperform a VM on the same drive as the host drive. (Obviously if the host machine has 2 drives, that argument goes away, but most of these ultra thin laptops only have one drive).

Re: the keyboard, I prefer the feel of the Logitech keyboards. But I've adapted to the chicklet keyboard ok. I loved the feel of the Lenovo keyboard and though the Lenovo overall was the most attractive, but the Spectre won out overall.

Much of the time when I'll use my new Spectre is when a projector is available. But for airplanes, trains, or coffee shops where a smaller footprint is better, having the bigger 17.3" screen can actually be a drawback.

I use reading glasses (up to 2.75x these days) because I'm horribly farsighted. So far I like the display of my smaller Spectre screen at 1920x1080 than my 17.3" brick of a laptop that only goes to 1600x900. The Spectre display is stunning.

So the truth is that my i7 brick of a laptop I bought two years ago with 16 GB of RAM is now serving as a desktop, connected to a big 28" LG monitor. :)

Last month I went to NYC SQL Saturday with my new Spectre, walked nearly 4 miles around Manhattan after that, and went to a jazz club with the Spectre in my backpack. Could barely feel the weight of it.