"Barebones" laptop?

[Guest]

So, it seems like I do need a laptop after all if I want to get stuff done in my current situation. I've not shopped around for notebooks (or really any mobile devices tbh.) for the last few years so I really need a bit of help here. The thing is, every laptop or notebook I see either has tons of stuff that I don't need or is lacking in some crucial areas. My idea was to look for a laptop that is as barebones as possible (just a nice chassis, screen and decent CPU) so that I can add RAM, an SSD and my OS of choice after that. I know that many Lenovo Laptops come with no OS installed, which is a great plus since it shaves quite a bit off the sticker price, but I would really like to add RAM and an SSD (what am I supposed to do with the extra 2.5'' HDD?) myself.

 

Does this even exist or will I have to settle for a notebook that is simply "okay"?

 

If that is really not a thing, what kind of notebook would fit these criteria:

<500€

between 15'' and 18'' screen size (decent screen as well, I'm not going lower than 1600x900 and IPS would really be preferred if it could fit in my price range)

decent battery life (5+ hours if possible)

Quadcore i5 (most of the mobile chips seem to be hyperthreaded dual cores, I would really prefer a real quadcore though)

8GB of RAM (or a single 4GB stick so I can easily expand to 8GB)

no OS

no dedicated GPU

good build quality

good keyboard (I'll have to type on this thing quite a lot)

 

things that would be nice to have but aren't necessary:

optical drive

decent bluetooth

 

Weight and looks are not important.

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

as far as I know in the mobile market you only get a quad core when you step into the I7 range. I have only ever seen dual core I5s in the mobile market.

[Guest]

as far as I know in the mobile market you only get a quad core when you step into the I7 range. I have only ever seen dual core I5s in the mobile market.

 

Well that's already a bummer, might as well stick to an i3 then since the extra few hundred MHz and the boost clock won't make a huge difference for me.