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I'd go with the Macbook Pro Retina (I've used both Windows and Mac, but I've been Windows-free since 2011, so be aware that I'm biased:-).
Upsides: It's cool:-), has a great interface, nice display, Unix command-line when you need it, good ergonomics, it's not Windows 8 (but if you really need Windows-only apps, you can get emulation software), you can get a Mac GitHub client, and Confluence is a web interface, which works fine on my Mac (Firefox or Safari).
Downsides: Some software (MadCap comes to mind) will require an emulator (VirtualBox, VMWare, etc.), some software seems to always be a rev or so behind what's available on Windows, you'll probably get better performance for your dollar with the Lenovo, and you may get a bigger screen (I don't know the 440 and 540 well enough to know).
Good Luck,
Richard Hamilton
-------
XML Press
XML for Technical Communicators http://xmlpress.net
hamilton -at- xmlpress -dot- net
On Feb 5, 2015, at 14:40, Ryan G Young <ryangyoung -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> A good problem: I'm starting a new job on Monday and I need to choose which laptop to use. The choice is between:
> - 13" Macbook Air
> - 13" Macbook Pro Retina
> - Lenovo ThinkPad T440p
> - Lenovo ThinkPad T540
> All of their documentation is currently in Markdown in various GitHub repositories. Presumably, we'll need some other tools at some point (maybe Confluence?) but not for a while probably.
> I'd personally--strongly--prefer a Macbook.
>
> Thoughts?
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