IBM ThinkPad T41 Styled in IBM's traditional, no-nonsense black, the ThinkPad T41 series measures a svelte 12 inches wide by 10 inches deep by 1 inch thick and weighs only 5.88 pounds with its removable 7-ounce optical drive and AC adapter--standard size for top-notch thin-and-lights. The notebook also runs cool to the touch, even while playing DVDs, so you can compute on your lap for hours without singeing your trousers. The standard array of connections line the edges: audio in/out jacks, Gigabit Ethernet and v.92 modem ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a mouse connector and a PC Card slot on the left side; VGA output on the right; and parallel and AC jacks in the back. The right edge hosts a media bay called the Ultrabay Slim, which accepts a second battery or hard drive; our test unit’s came filled with a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. The ThinkPad T41 series also features IBM's Security Subsystem 2.0 with both BIOS-level and software components to make these notebooks some of the most secure in the industry. And now a new jewel has been added to the security crown: the patent-pending Active Protection System, which shuts down the hard drive when it senses rapid acceleration to prevent damage before a violent impact occurs. In our drop tests, the hard drive did indeed shut down briefly, but it returned to normal use in a few seconds. The ThinkPad T41 series comes in a variety of configurations priced from $1,649 to $3,729. The configurations offer Pentium M CPUs from 1.4GHz to 1.7GHz, hard drives from 30GB to 60GB, and from 256MB to 2GB of memory. The 14.1-inch display comes in two native resolutions--1,400x1,050 and 1,024x768--each driven by your choice of the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 or the faster Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics card. Each of these cards sports 32MB of dedicated graphics memory. That’s not a screaming graphics setup, but it’s enough for business users.

Several battery options are also available: a $159, six-cell 4.4AH unit; a slightly heavier but longer-lasting $179, nine-cell 6.6AH model; and a $189 auxiliary battery that fits in the media bay. The ThinkPad T41 series achieves impressive battery life, especially considering its high performance score. With its standard 10.8V, 4,400mAh (48WHr) battery, it lasted nearly four hours--more than long enough to best the Gateway 200, whose weaker 11.1V, 2,200mAh (24WHr) battery didn’t last even two hours. However, the ThinkPad met its match in Dell's Latitude D600, which sports a similar 11.1V, 4,320mAh (48WHr) battery. The Latitude D600 lasted 11 minutes longer than the ThinkPad T41 series; however, the T41 would undoubtedly reverse that result using its larger, optional battery. Regardless, the ThinkPad T41 series gives you plenty enough time to finish up your office and content-creation work on long plane rides.