I upgraded from my trusty Fujitsu Lifebook T730 in early 2013.

Base specs:

• 13.3" (1920x1080)
• Intel i7-3517U (1.9Ghz)
• 4GB DDR3 (2 onboard, 2 modular)
• Intel HD4000 onboard
• Nvidia 620M 1GB bonus video
• 500GB (W/ 24GB flash cache)
• 3 x USB 3.0 ports
• Micro-VGA port, dongle converts to full VGA
• HDMI port

Upgrades:

• 8gb stick, plus the 2gb onboard, for 10gb RAM total
• 250gb Samsung SSD to replace the 500gb spinning disk

Install:

• Debian Sid
• gnome-session base with xmonad window manager

Fun stuff:

• Just about everything works out of the box
• At first it didn't work, but after a kernel upgrade I can use the HDMI and the VGA and the built in screen all at the same time. Triple screens!
• bumblebee provides 'optirun', which lets me run an individual program with the accellerated nvidia card. Fancy!