I originally started looking for a laptop in August of 2004. There were several qualities I was looking for in a laptop. They were as follows:

1) wireless connectivity - Since I wanted to use it at school and log on to the wireless network on campus.
2) good battery life - Since I didn't want to have to look for a power outlet all the time.
3) reliability - I did not want to a laptop that cut corners and had a reputation for many troubles. Also, I wanted a laptop that could last me for many years. This was my number one concern.

After doing hours of research, I settled on picking an IBM because of reports of its' reliability. I also chose this model because it had a track point and because the model had a very good keyboard. This was important since I would be working a lot on the laptop and I wanted the keyboard to feel as much as like a desktop as possible. I also liked the fact that it had a Pentium M processor and it was a Centrino. That showed me that I could expect long battery life from it and that it would be able to connect to a wireless network.

After using this laptop for 6 months, I can honestly say this was a great choice. When I saw the laptop, I could tell it was all business. It's matte black finish looks solid and when I picked it up, it felt sturdy and the lid didn't flex at all. Many other laptops I looked at were really stylish but theirs lids didn't feel very solid at all. This ThinkPad felt as if it could withstand a hammer to it (of course, I didn't try it). The laptop was also attached to the rest of the unit by a very durable hinge that extends from one edge of the screen to the other edge of the screen. It stays in place very well and I don't think the hinge will exhibit problems, such as getting loose down the road.

The keyboard has a nice, solid feel to it. The keys are nicely spaced and my hands don't get too tired typing on it. They are also regular sized and the keys are in the familiar positions, the one caveat is that there is no windows key. That didn't really hamper me at all, but it might for some. When I click on the keys, the feedback is nice and there is a satisfying depth to the keys, actually feels like the keys are being pressed. The track point and the touchpad also perform well.

For me the weight wasn't that big of an issue, but at nearly 7 pounds, others may find it a deterrent. If so, I recommend getting a backpack style laptop bag for instead of the traditional side bag. Speaking of which, the notebook does have a hot-swappable DVD-ROM drive, which makes it a cinch to remove and upgrade down the road, or just taking it out when it's not needed to lighten the load.

This model also has a think light at the top of the screen, it helps to illuminate the keyboard somewhat in dark lighting, but I find it only mildly useful. If you traveled by plane a lot, I would imagine you would find it much more useful. There are also a lot of indicator lights at the bottom of the screen which is a nice touch to see what's going on with your laptop (i.e. wireless radio, battery, hard drive access, caps lock, and num lock).

I have one big issue with it though. Since I do a lot of programming on the side. I do a lot of disk read/writes, and the speed of the hard drive is 4,200 RPM, nothing like the 7,200 RPM norm for desktops. Because of this, the laptop lags sometimes and the hard drive has to spin a lot, causing the fan to kick in occasionally. Also if you're a real audiophile, you might be disappointed with the small sound that this laptop produces. If you are a casual listener and you use headphones, the quality is adequate.

Another possible negative, IBM ships this laptop with no recovery CD. What they do instead is mount a hidden image in your hard drive to recover from. This does two things. One, it reduces your total storage space since it sets asides a certain amount of space for the recovery. Two, if you ever want to upgrade hard drive, then you lose that convenience of having the a recovery CD handy. For me, it hasn't turned into a negative yet.

The hard drive also isn't very big, especially if you're used to desktop hard drive spaces. The CPU performs well though, it really is true that a 1.4 Pentium M will perform like a Pentium 4. I also wish that the DVD-ROM was a DVD-RW drive but I still have my desktop for doing that I guess. I also found that the installed 256MB of memory wasn't sufficient to really get going so I upgraded to 768 MB. If you're playing games or doing a lot of multitasking, it will be a definite boon. With the upgrade, I found most major games play pretty nice like the Sims and unreal tournament and multitasking didn't slow my computer down to a crawl. The software package that comes with the laptop is pretty meager though so if you don't have a good software library at home, you might have to shell out some money for an office suite and things like that. However, it does ship with a suite of IBM programs, and I find most of them are pretty useful. They also don't ship any extraneous and suspicious software with it, not like some other laptops.

Since I bought this laptop, I've had to contact IBM support one time, but the issue was minor and I did not need to even follow through on my requests for assistance mainly because I was a new laptop user unused to the concept of how the battery recharging function worked. Speaking of the battery, the rated life is 6.2 hours, and I find that at normal usage I probably get around 5 hours (several programs running at once).

All in all, I would whole heartedly recommend this laptop for any student who wishes to maximize their investment (5 stars out of 5). I really doubt that I will be getting another laptop for a while because I like this one so much. If you're looking for a stylish laptop, then I would suggest you look elsewhere, but if you want a no-nonsense workhouse that you can depend on day in and day out, then pick this laptop. By the way this is my first laptop, before this I had 4 desktops.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1311.18
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40