Sofa...i spent 2 years going through this myself. You either pay $2-3k or settle for lower specs. The areas you will take a hit on with lower priced machines are...

Dedicated graphics vs integrated.

Display resolution. This knocks most pc's out of the running in the first round. The MBP has a better screen. Period. I have seen good screens on less expensive machines but they lack the resolution or SSD or CPU speed...you will go around in a circle and end up right back where you are.

Large Capactiy SSD HD vs a small SSD + standard drive for storage. You can get larger SSD's in some laptops but that usually jacks the price up to where it costs as much as the MBP.

The last thing will be physical size. There are tons of gaming machines out there with lots of power but they also have 2 or 3 times the weight and heat and less battery life. A lot of people say "who cares". The answer to that is YOU do. You have to lug this thing around for the next few years. A minor processor bump isn't enough to get you to lose the better screen and add the extra weight.

Then you have to think about service. Lenovo has top notch service...but they don't have stores in every major city. Their screen quality and resolution won't match up to the MBP...so we are right back in the circle headed back to the MBP.

My W500 was super fast...even at the end of its life. It had a 1920X1200 16:10 display. I was able to add a 1TB drive for storage where the CD drive was. I had a nice dock for it at home. Flat black, durable. It was relatively small, had decent battery life. The only complaint i had was that the display was like 50% of the brightness of every other laptop i had ever used and there was no way to change that. Reviews claim that the newer Lenovos have better displays but they are all 16:9.

For work you should get the top of the line MBP or the Lenovo W540 with specs (large SSD, 3k display, extra ram etc) maxed out.

Adding... i strongly suggest you find someone with the MBP and test drive it a little bit. Mine sucks with VMWare...if boot camp doesn't make it faster then you should go with the Lenovo.