Buying the right laptop 2016

There!  It's September and marketing folks prefix or append "back to school" to products in order to make their purchase necessary at this time of the year.  One product that is very relevant these days is a Laptop. 

I have a Dell INSPIRON 15. It takes up a large space. Carrying it is similar to weight lifting. Once powered on, irrelevant processes run, advertising Dell software and services. Despite a 64bit AMD processor it doesn't scale. And it has a loud fan.

I am thinking of retiring the old dude!

"It's all about the specs!"  The Best buy representative said. "When shopping for a new laptop it is best to compare specs of the laptops in one's price range."

I have a $1000 budget. My ideal spec would be:
> Intel processor, preferably i5 or i7,
> No less than 8GB of RAM,
> Less than 1.5kg
> No less than 8 hours of battery life
> A quiet keyboard
> Doesn't heat
> Equipped with USB, (preferably 3.1), HDMI, and Ethernet ports
> Not bloated with pre-installed useless software

ASUS X540L comes with two Intel i7 cores, 8GB of RAM, less than 2kg, USB 3.0 and is $749.99 CAD on Best Buy's "back to school" sale.

I bought and trialed run it yesterday, and I am returning it today.

On this computer there is no visual aide to indicate Caps Lock is on! Typing is a painful task of many backspace/erase keystrokes, e.g. the page up/down keys are not co-located with the arrows.  It comes pre-installed with crapware.

The only thing this laptop has going for it, is its sharp display. Pity, I cannot keep the NVIDIA graphic card!

I will trial run a Lenovo next!  Meanwhile, my old dude is staying.