looking to get a laptop and need some input...

Macbook pro 15" 2.8 GHz i7 w/16 gb of ram dedicated graphics w/ 2gb, 512 flash STORAGE and retina display (2560x1600) plus apple care
3048.00 as configured

or

THINKPAD T540 2.8 GHz i7 w/16 gb of ram, dedicated graphics w/ 1gb, windows 7 pro, 512 SSD, 9 cell battery and a 3K display (2880x1620)
2828.70 as configured

or

what do you recommend?

I do use mac (wanted a newer computer other than one with windows 8) but also windows 7 is my favorite EDITION of Windows so far since the release of XP

Will be doing some digital graphics work w/ Adobe Illustrator and maybe some other Adobe programs and maybe some 3d work in rhino 5 and/or Solidworks plus your normal web browsing in chrome and Microsoft Office 2010/2011

Do you have anything important that requires the Mac?
It looks like you prefer windows programs.
So, buy the Think pad. Bit you must move up to Windows 8.1 and leave 7 behind. That is what Microsoft is telling the world.

Yes, you can run Windows on a Mac. But buy the Thinkpad.

EDIT: And start with 8GB of RAM. Prices are up again. You don't need 16GB for anything you do.
ok, the docking station and trackpoint made me go Lenovo than HP.... Macbook air has a real good 3rd party dock now that let's you use the internal display other then having to use an external one....plus I don't ever think I will be using Solidworks... just had to include it. I don't know what I will be studying in collage next year.... most of the applications I will use on a regular basis will both available on windows and mac so does not matter. I use mac now and will probably buy an external monitor with any computer I buyWhile it would be great to give you a simple answer, this is really one of those questions that is up to you in the end. Both are great machines so it really comes down to what will work best for you. I currently own a ThinkPad T440s and own a 13" MacBook Pro which I used to use as my main laptop. Out of the two I prefer the ThinkPad but that's just me.

The ThinkPad is by far the more flexible machine with a proper docking station, upgradable parts and swappable, high capacity batteries however it doesn't run MacOS if that's what you prefer. The T540p is however quite a bit bulkier than the MacBook Pro.

You will need to think whether you want MacOS or Windows as that's going to be the main difference between the two.Ok, I like both but I think that I will need to see what kind of software I will be using as it seems that the one program I'm least likely to use is only available on windows 7/8... I defiantly will not buy a windows 8 computer as I don't need the windows store or tile apps

Now would 2 gb of dedicated graphics beat out 1 gb of dedicated graphics when doing stuff like Digital Graphics, would that be an overkill to have 2g of dedicated graphics or that does not matter?The video memory isn't hugely important, what models are the GPUs in question here?Mac has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M

the Lenovo has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M graphicsIn that case the GPU in the mac is quite a bit more powerful. Whether that will make a difference really comes down to whether the software you use can take advantage of the GPU when rendering, you would need to look into this.ok, that sounds good