IBM ThinkPad T42 Notebook PC (1.70 GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 40 GB Hard Drive) 23734WU

Rating:
Summary: Great Laptop
Review: Even though IBM sold their pc division shortly after I purchased this machine, I would purchase it still. It is pretty close to the perfect laptop in almost every respect.

It's lightweight yet durable - a machine that is meant to travel. The speed is really good. The screen is really nice, bright and crisp. I picked the 14.1" version of the laptop because I wanted the smallest full featured machine possible and I was not disappointed.

The fingerprint reader is great and easy to use. I have it set up to require a fingerprint scan at boot up for security and from there it will log me into windows as well. I even have different fingers set-up to allow different Windows privileges (admin vs restricted user).

There are a lot of nice little features in this machine that make a big difference. I'm a big fan of the mouse pointer in the on the keyboard and would not know what to do with out it. The extra scroll button for the mouse is really handy as well as the keyboard light built into the screen. The keyboard is comfortable and well laid out.

The software that comes with the machine is very good, especially if you are moving from network to network. For the most part it does a great job of figuring out what environment you are working and configures itself appropriately.

About the only drawback to the machine is the price, but what you pay extra you get back in less aggravation and a better experience with a machine that (if you are like me) use every day.