With its perfect keyboard and splendidly pixelated active-matrix screen, IBM's ThinkPad has a well-deserved reputation as the best of breed in the notebook category. If you can afford one, that is. I happen to use a year-old ThinkPad 560x, which weighs a bantam 4.1 lbs. Despite its advanced age and relatively pedestrian configuration (I had to add extra RAM), it cost $2,200 new. Luckily for me, my employer paid.
But what about people who aren't so blessed as to work for the best darn company in the world? Laptops constitute the fastest-growing sector of the computer market, and last year Big...