> Just hope I won't be expected to rely heavily on proprietary applications.
That would be an unreasonable expectation. If you can get the work done using some other software, there is no reason your work should not be accepted. A text file is a text file, regardless of what text editor created it. The only reason proprietary IDEs are used is because they're convenient.
In any case, if you need it by February, the X200 is the best you can do.
