Picking a Laptop (redundant title, I know)

College Life
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<p>I have recently been accepted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (yay!) and am now faced with the first "big" decision to make. I was awarded a grant of $1500 to cover a laptop provided by the school store, so my options are limited. I plan on majoring in Global Studies/Political Science/Public Policy (or something of the like). Here is the link that shows the options that are available to me. <a href="http://store107.collegestoreonline.com/webitemimages/107/Images/CCI_2014-Matrix.gif"&gt;http://store107.collegestoreonline.com/webitemimages/107/Images/CCI_2014-Matrix.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I cannot opt out of the software and protection plan or the warranty- also, around $100 of tax is added to the price listed.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for the responses!</p>

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<p>I think you should go for the ThinkPad W540…I mean comparing it with the MacBook Pro15. It wins along!!!</p>

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<p>I appreciate the quick reply. The only problem is that I don’t have the money out of pocket, even for that, at the moment. </p>

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<p>Based on what you written (Budget), your choices are a Lenovo T440 or MacBook Pro0. The specs look very similar. The Lenovo has a slightly bigger screen , is lighter, better battery life (need to check reviews on both to verify what the battery life really is) and is $250 cheaper. The MacBook has a DVD player.</p>

<p>So do you like the Windows or the Apple operating system? Either should fit your need which appear to be mainly word processing.</p>

<p>One thing to consider is that you might be able to order the computer and take delivery during the tax free week or weekend (it was August last year but I do not know when or if it will be this year). If this is a option you could save on tax but will not get the computer at orientation. </p>

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<p>I have a Thinkpad T440p and am very happy with it (the slightly bulkier, slightly cheaper, and slightly more powerful and flexible version of theT440). Thinkpads have high build quality, so you can expect it to last. I would go with the T440 over the W540. For your field, you are not going to need the most powerful laptop out there. The W540 falls more into that category: a large workhorse. You would probably be happier with the portability of the T440.
That said, all the computers listed on that chart are good computers and I don’t think you could go wrong with any of them.</p>

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<p>One nice thing about the T440, it looks like it has a removable battery and an internal battery. You can buy a spare battery to extend work time.</p>