I have a netbook with a standard layout, and then my MacBook Pro. I can switch between them without thinking twice. It's really not that difficult.. you don't even think about it.
I went into Unity with an open mind, but just couldn't get used to it. Tried for about 2 weeks but it's just too.. different. I wans't getting anything done. Gnome classic for now. Probably back to AwesomeWM soon
I love how people claim religious oppression to "satan" stuff but yet everyday there's religious oppression against Christianity - more so than anything other religion. 100% Double standard
It's not that hard. It took me maybe 2-3 hours the first time I did it, and I learned more about Linux than I did the entire year before I had been using Ubuntu. It's not too hard, but it's not set and install, that's all
You should check out MPC for your video playback. When I was running Windows on my netbook (now linux), i used MPC instead of VLC and it was much better. Try that. It might work, or might not
I say go with the Lenovo. They are good, sturdy, simple yet strong laptops.
And like everyone has said, there will be no issues hooking it up to another monitor. =]