laptop reccomendations

[i8bjz8AR]

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for the school year. I used my old Toshiba satellite l855 s5309 for the first few programming classes and it was okay. It's starting to die on me and ill be taking objected oriented in the fall along with a few others, then data structures in the spring, so I think a faster laptop will only help me out a little, although i never did bog down at all with my i3 4gigs of ram compiling anything. Anyways, my budget is no more then $1200. Battery life isn't a huge deal, enough to make it through lecture but my satellite had about 3 hours so I'm sure anything else will only be better. I don't think I want anything mac. I'll just dual boot with linux. Keyboard I guess is the most important thing. I've looked at Lenovo a lot, the yoga's in particular(2 in 1's) and I'm not sure if those are any good. Mostly looking at best buy here and they don't seem to sell the Lenevo thinkpads that I want. I don't game at all.
Any recommendations on what i should buy?

[shadder]

http://www.topbestguide.com/best-laptop-under-1200-dollars

I would go with ASUS ZenBook UX303UB although yours may be different

also

I don't think I want anything mac. I'll just dual boot with linux.

You can dual boot a mac

[abbott]

What size do you prefer?

[abbott]

I have been a customer of Dell for years. Now I'm using a XPS 15, good spec for the money, have a look at here http://pc4u.org/best-laptop-for-video-editing-photo-editing/

[Naughty Albatross]

My recommendation would be Lenovo ThinkPad X260 (17:14). This laptop is very famous for its great performance and long battery life.

[orangepeel367]

I would go for a Lenovo ThinkPad. I would either get the X260 if you want a smaller laptop(12.5") or a T460 if you want a 14" laptop. They will last you a very, very long time.
My daily driver is a ThinkPad R400 ($150 off ebay!) which came out in 2009 and it still kicks ass with a cheap SSD.
Thanks :-)