Lenovo ThinkPad T30 2366 (Pentium 4-M 1.8 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD)

Pros: combo trackpoint & trackpad, excellent keyboard, lo maintenance

Cons: bad system boards on early units, battery life not great

Summary: I have two of these - one purchased in the fall of 2002 and another picked-up off of ebay last week. I haven't had any problems with the unit I bought new - its run flawlessly pretty much from the getgo. In fact, in the first year I can recall only one instance of the system freezing and that had everything to do with Windows and me than with the laptop. Its been a fast machine, has run it's share of graphics intensive games despite the older radeon chip and the relatively small amount of video ram. The sound quality from the speakers is superb and the machine is quiet so that I often use _it_ for my music system. The build quality is very good and the machine feels solid. Wireless quality is quite high and has good range.

The used unit that I recently picked-up is a good indication of how these systems wear over time. The previous user put the machine through its paces - the outside shows some sign of wear, the pc slot cover is missing, and there's some chipping on the cover. But like a lot of older ThinkPads that I've had, it ages well and is able to withstand quite a bit of punishment.

The T30 has been plagued with one significant problem - defective system boards on the earliest units. System board defects generally involve one of the memory slots going south. Later models aren't so affected.
It just so happens that I got one of the earlier units and despite the loss of the memory slot, it still works fine.

The T30s aren't the flashiest of laptops but that can be said for all ThinkPads but they do exude a definite elegance and style. The T30 doesn't have a lot of less than useful bells and whistles that make some laptops look more like cheesy boomboxes. But the quality shows itself in reliability and lifespan. Lots of T30s are coming off their 3 year warranties now and are good deals for a less expensive P4 - definitely a better deal than older Txx models (the video chip alone is a good selling point) or other P4s.