I'm sure you asked here for independent recommendations... so please anybody
else who wants to comment please do.
My experience/advice:
1. You probably don't really need the graphics card, Intel's graphics are
already decent for the majority of use cases including yours I believe.
2. SSD is significantly faster and will have the most dramatic impact, with
boot times cut by as much as half, but are not quite as reliable as some of
the better traditional hard drives that use a spinning platter. This is even
taking into account that we use the better rated SSD drives and not the cheap
stuff. Some people get two drives to solve this problem. One SSD for OS and
applications and another for data. Note: I don't think we actually have a 2nd
drive option for the Penguin Pro 5, but if you send us a request somebody
will add the option for a 2nd drive. Of course frequent backups are always
advisable to avoid data loss regardless of the type of drive.
3. You probably need about 2 1/2 gigabytes right now give or take for typical
use cases (web browsing, email, etc), for base OS/desktop environment/basic
software, but if you plan to have the system for 4-5 years you'll probably
want to play it safe and get 8GB+.
