Sorry it's taken this long, But I've been doing some research and I think I found a good one.
Acer Swift 3
14 inch, non touchscreen, I5-7200U, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD.
Lowest price I've found.
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Swift-i5-72 … B01MT5YW65
Here's a very good review
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Swif … 964.0.html
The only real downside I see is the lack of upgradeability, but that's becoming more and more common anyway, unfortunately, especially in any non gaming higher end laptop.
Either way, I see this computer being current enough to run the stuff you need for 3 years, at the very least.
The capacity of the SSD, the I5, and especially the metal casing are all pretty hard to find at your price, not to mention a battery this big or a weight this low, with this level of CPU power.
Acer isn't the most amazing company, for instance the warranty sucks, but the customer support has gotten allot better in the past few years, not to mention the quality control, and usually their isn't much bloatware.
As for sound, the speakers may be custom, but the codec is as generic as they come, which is honestly becoming more and more rare.
If it's not to your liking, I have a list of other models that I've shortlisted which I can go through.
In response to fly by chow...
Most people don't need a cellular modem in the states, it's a luxury, not a necessity there, since home internet uses copper or, rarely, fiber-optic underground cable. Outside of the home, their are lots of open public networks run by small businesses like coffee shops, or sometimes metropolitan networks run by ISP's, also using cable.
Southafrica's network infrastructure is interesting, and while it's inherently slower than cable, it does do the job surprisingly well for not much cost.
Either way, the west still doesn't hold a candle to much of Asia, particularly Korea, in the speed department.
A three hour battery time just isn't that impressive any more, and rarely will people wish to buy another battery unless they are going to be away from a power outlet for an extended period, especially considering that they usually stick out of the back oddly.
That said, the X series is durable for sure, just like the Thinkpad line, and as far as I know, has a good keyboard just like the Thinkpad's do as well.
In response to Orco
Those thin and light models you mentioned are almost exclusively fully encased in aluminum, with corning gorilla glass screens, and most importantly, use SSD's, which means no risk of data loss or inability to boot from a simple fall.
I'd trust that over a monolithic slab of plastic with a spinning drive and emergency shock sensors any day, and I've had both.
They are a bitch to repair though... LOL.