Nothing is going to give you the build quality and battery life of the new macbooks, and anything that comes close will have some poor design or just shitty form factor.
If you are going to take your laptop to class a lot, you cannot beat a mac. I've been taking my MBP out with me every day this quarter and will have it on for 4 hours or so and battery life is still at 40% or so when I get back.