I use R (free) and SPSS (paid) and data both proprietary and public (e.g. census data).
My last major project was analyzing cities for growth factors that are likely to increase housing costs for real estate investment opportunities. Data included the obvious geographics (e.g. mountains, lakes, reservations, etc., which prevent urban sprawl), demographics (e.g. age, race, religion, gender, etc), urban developments (schools, hospitals, courts, police stations, highways, parks,etc.), industrial and commercial growth, etc. etc. etc.., and less obvious things like traffic jams and gas stations per capita.
Cheers.
Thanks for the input. I've just started school, so it's still hard to say how light or demanding my needs will be. So far, I'm just using Google Docs, and a research manager, Mendeley. This reminds me though that I will eventually have to download SPSS (Statistical Program for the Social Sciences), so there goes the Chromebook option.