<p>Hey there, I'm going into UIUC this fall as a freshmen doing EE, and I wanted some opinions on various laptops. Right off the bat, my dad works for IBM, so we get some pretty amazing discounts on Lenovo products, so that's what I'm gravitating towards. The one I've had my eye on the most is the X220 or maybe it's tablet version. </p>
<p>ThinkPad X220 - $950
Intel iCore i5 2520M Processor
12.5" HD Screen
720p HD Camera
4GBPC3-10600DDR3 1333SODMM (2 slots of 2GB)
320GB Internal Hard Disk, 7200RPM
29+ 6 Cell Battery
2 Year OnSite Warranty (big thing for me, have had past problems)</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>edit: I should add that I'm really not too big on gaming or anything. Dedicated graphics seems silly for me</p>
<p>The X220 is nice. Looks good. I would recommend the IPS screen though, makes it much easier to use outside and in brightly lit rooms.</p>
<p>It should work fine. A friend has the tablet version and it has proved to be very versatile. </p>
<p>Be prepared to cough up another hundred or two for an LCD screen if you don’t have one. The integrated graphics is fine for most work you’ll encounter. </p>
<p>My only concern about the X or most Thinkpads is that the docking station precludes use of a cooling pad. You do have a port replicator option.</p>
<p>The college discount price of the 220 as configured above is $1050 so the discount you get from IBM is pretty good!</p>
<p>the only minus about this particular thinkpad is its small screen size. As an EE major, you might have a couple of programming courses, and a large screen will be more pleasant to use in this situation, but you can always use the college computer labs for these tasks. Other than that its a great laptop</p>