Something New
How about instead of throwing out individual setups and arguing points that can be found anywhere on the net, why not give some college experience?
For instance, a fourth of my campus is run on mac. At any given time 90% of these are unused. I won't judge why, I'm just making the point that the computers the school has, does not say what computers the school uses.
A second note, some schools give out software for free. If you'd like to see the software available for free(at my school) please go to
http://iuware.iu.edu/
Your school may do something similar, and the software they provide might have an impact on your decision.
Lastly, you do not need a computer for the first day of college. I didn't have one my first year, and did not need one. Freshmen courses are generally low tech and pretty laid back so you have time to use a computer lab for the few instances it is needed. If you haven't decided for sure, wait. This advice may be bad, if you go to a school such as Rose Hulman where all the students are expected to have a laptop. I am just stating from mine.
If there are any other college students out there, please continue my line of thought with your experiences(both agree and disagree with mine). As a previous searcher of advice(can't find my old laptop thread), this type of advice just seems more easy to process.(not to mention a bit less biased)