Lenovo ThinkPad T61p Laptop/Notebook

I have been using Thinkpad T-Series laptops for more than 10 years now, dragging them all over the world. They are sturdy and high quality.
The T-61 has quite a bit of computing power, a good screen, but what I like most with the Thinkpads is the keyboard. It just has good feel and is comfortable to use.
The only rant I have is that with the increase in computing power the battery life seems to go down. The T-42 I had before lasted almost 5 hours on the extended battery, the T-61 only 3 hours if I am conservative. It might also be because the T-61 is a 15" screen, which requires more power to light up.
All in all a good, sturdy laptop that can be dragged around without dragging you down.

12/2010: I'm very happy with my Thinkpad T61p. So much so, I bought an identical model to serve as a backup - I'm very hard on my laptops. There are several screen options on the 'p' (for Performance) models - the 15" 1920x1200 WUSXGA is truly stunning. It's too much for my wife to look at though - the resolution is just way too high! (and I keep my fonts small) You can put a ton of RAM in them and up to a T9300 processor. (I think? Mine came with T7700) I've since upgraded the 7200rpm drives they come with standard to SSDs, but even the factory drives are large and fast. If you nee a laptop with lots of screen real estate and a graphics card with some punch to match (NVidia Quadro2 256Mb) you could do a hell of a lot worse. Main complaint: display isn't bright enough to be very useful in direct sunlight or other extremely high ambient light situations.

2/2012: Regretfully, I no longer hold the T61p in such high esteem. In the past 18 months, I've had to deal with THREE motherboard failures related to BGA soldering issues on the poorly cooled GPU. At this point, these machines are a time bomb waiting to go off. Motherboard repair is a couple hundred dollars each time, easily approaching the value of the laptop. Get a warranty (squaretrade?) and be prepared for failure if you buy one of these because it WILL happen sooner or later. Still an amazing laptop in many ways but I wouldn't buy one today if I needed rock-solid reliability.

Though this notebook is a couple of years old, it holds a much higher value than almost any notebook on the market. For the price, you get a system with a high resolution screen, reliable components, and room for 8GB of RAM upgrades. The system stays cool and quiet, and the dedicated graphics card allows for reasonable gaming and AutoCAD use. Don't hesitate, this notebook was built to last for years.

Phenomenal laptop. The screen resolution is out of this world...1920 x 1080. Crisp and sharp; beautiful. I had XP installed because I hate Windows 7. I bought two of these laptops used from eBay; one for everyday use and a backup for travel. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Do NOT buy the garbage sold by big box retailers. These Lenovo laptops have the silky smooth IBM keyboard, reliability, and sharp screen we want.

This is a replacement for an older Thinkpad, T21. This laptop has all of the great features of the old Thinkpad plus upgrades. I like that it has the wide screen and built in wireless, no need for a wireless card or usb adapter. It has a fast, 7200, hard drive and plenty of memory. I am sure this will outlast any of the new consumer laptops I was looking at that were in the same price range. Even though it is older it has comparable specs and is built for a work environment where the others are not.