What are you doing that a specced up http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusV-17/ couldn't handle?
Specifically, when doing deep infodiving, it's not uncommon to juggle (that is, actually apply ops within 30-min intervals to) 80+ tabs; 2 visual studio in the background; local number crunching: large-ish data / machine learning sandboxes; one-click virtual-machines ("wonder how this looks like in a mac?"); and the occasional steam round. 2x4 vCPU cores usually humming along at ~10-40%, 20-something GB ram usage, no swap.
These reqs bias me towards performance, even at _some_ expense of mobility.
I have a dirt cheap Lenovo laptop (~$300 + an SSD) running OpenBSD that I use to connect over OpenVPN + SSH for doing any serious computation. You'd probably want something with a higher-res display and Windows-based, but if it's possible that sort of setup might be easier.
I long ago gave up on "workstation class" laptops. You just don't get enough bang for the buck IMO.
Incidentally, if you're buying small-scale HPC hardware I highly recommend ThinkMate. Their prices are far far better than Dell/IBM/etc. and their support has always been superb.
Might not work for everybody, but something worth considering. For me, the trade off versus lugging around one of those monstrous "portable workstations" compared to my dinky little plastic Lenovo is well worth it.
As far as the virtual machines go, you could potentially just remote for those, no? Honestly I would prefer a laptop running on a very low load, especially if it's in my lap!