I spent $215 on a used Thinkpad T series with a solid state drive, including shipping (eBay). Thing is light as a feather and much faster than previous laptops I've owned, and I used to own a Macbook Pro. It boots up and is ready to run apps in literally 10 seconds, and I have never had any trouble running any program or doing any task for med school at maximum speed. There's no reason to be spending thousands on a laptop when even 5+ year old Thinkpads will be way more than sufficient to handle anything that med school throws at you. A $2000 laptop won't give you any sort of edge. By all means do it if you have money to blow like that. If not, then this is precisely why doctors have such a reputation for being terrible with money. Trust me. You won't regret saving more than enough to cover all of your Step 1 expenses, which are a lot by the way. Also, have you noticed how most hospitals tend to use Thinkpads? They're still using T420's at the top hospitals in America. Enough said.