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As it turns out, Lenovo Thinkpads CAN be serviced at the IS&T walk-in customer service desk. Thinkpads are however the only model Lenovo apparently allows to be serviced off their company depot. For all of their other models Lenovo must be contacted and they will send a box for return to depot. If you are someone who expects reliability, word has it to stay away from Lenovo's Ideapad line for now.
Also important to note that Lenovo tightly controls the firmware of their machines so non-Lenovo certified parts or operating systems won't work in their machines. This means Linux Distros and lower versions of Windows (like Windows 7) could be blocked from installation. Also users will be unable to tweak the CPU or RAM clocking and hardware to boost performance. This makes Lenovo machines distinctively unsuitable for gaming or application where other non-shipped OS implementations or hardware customizations are required.
Macbook Air
Please be aware that we do not recommend the Macbook Air as a primary laptop machine due to its historically reported weak WiFi performance and limited number of ports. It is, however, an acceptable second laptop for travel as long as the user understands its limitations and potential connectivity drawbacks. We have had a significant number of reports for the MacBook Air being unable to connect to the WiFi network at Hethrow Airport outside of London for example. For the light weight primary Apple laptop solution, we recommend the current 13" Macbook Pro with Retina Display. At 1 pound heavier than the MacBook Air it has the performance, flexibility, and functionality of a full blown laptop. But if you choose to order one of these, pay attention to the hard drive size as Apple is selling these with the smaller capacity solid state drives. Make sure you get a hard drive with enough storage to fit all your data from your old laptop.
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