I also recommend a Macbook (Air or Pro depending on how much dev). Most students these days seem to be using Apple products, laptops or iPads. This makes it ea

I also recommend a Macbook (Air or Pro depending on how much dev). Most students these days seem to be using Apple products, laptops or iPads. This makes it easy to deal with your University's IT department if/when they make you do special things to get access to their networks. (I remember the days when only Windows was supported and getting Mac/Linux to work with campus networks and services was a huge ordeal.) As an entrepreneur, a lot of tech companies are mobile focused which means iOS is in the mix. To do any native development requires a Mac. And to do pitching/presentations, Macs are very nice for creating and presenting that type of stuff. (Guy Kawasaki has warned Windows users to expect to lose 20 minutes setting up your PowerPoint display for a pitch.) Additionally, VCs tend to use iPhones and iPads now...your Mac data will usually interoperate better. For hacking, again, if mobile is a concern, Mac is the only platform that lets you do both iOS and Android. The Unix heritage on Mac makes dealing with the harder areas of Android development easier than on Windows (Linux is okay). If you are doing heavy development, then a Macbook Pro is probably better. If you are doing light development, Air is fine. With Xcode, RAM is more important than CPU. So max out the RAM on any Air. (I don't know if the 12" Macbook will have enough RAM where you will be happy with Xcode.)