There is an even bigger free-software issue here from a practical
perspective. Lenovo is using digital restrictions on its laptops and thats
going to prevent them from replacing the intel wifi card with an atheros one.
IE no wifi after install. The obvious solution of course is to get a USB
dongle. Not ideal although probably a solution none-the-less.
I recommend people avoid at least: HP, Lenovo/IBM, Sony, Apple, Dell, and
Toshiba.
And... of course I'm always going to advocate for a free software friendly
system. ie I'll leave the two options to someone else to suggest.