You can always replace the stock HDD with an ssd for huge improvement in performance. Some 17" models have dual drive bays, and some 15-16" models have msata for the possibility of keeping the stock HDD for storage after converting to ssd for os/apps.

with regards to learning the coding - there is more and more online / cloud based coding platforms to use and learn from these days.

Take a look at https://c9.io/ (cloud9ide) and http://plnkr.co/ (plunker). I've been using plunkr recently to learn a bit of Angular and it also supports bootstrap and github so get a free github account and you can merge / branch your code and keep a backup.

With all of these resources and online tutorials / videos - learning has never been easier.

I'd recommend against a consumer class laptop. Business class all the way!

Get a lenovo  instead

much better hardware for the same price

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-15-6-Inch-59406634-Version/dp/B00HIY96WO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404993329&sr=8-2&keywords=lenovo+y510

Thats really useful thanks.

I am checking it out, and can't seem to find anything like a beginners/learners portal. Know of anything like that as a real starting point?

Amazon doesn't ship to Australia (for almost anything ).

That sounds almost the same as my laptop! Mine was £500 though.

Stupid Australia.

Where did you get yours?

Got it from PC World. It isn't the same (that's a 15-n215 whereas mine is a 15-n268) but it's from the same line. I like it and it's good enough for what I want to do (write articles, browse the Internet, program and play games) and for the budget I had it seemed like the best choice. 

Australia always seems to get the worst of this though...

OP if you want a great deal use reship.com to shop freely at us prices. The fees are very small, I have friends from Perth that swear by them.