IBM ThinkPad T40 C122UK

At 2.25kg, it's also 150g lighter, so it's all in all less bulky, easier to carry around and much closer to the original 'thin and light' description. The other main change is the lack of a serial port, but a parallel port is still situated on the back, and two USB 2 ports are sensibly mounted on the side. It's otherwise pretty sparse, though, with no PS/2 or FireWire ports and, perhaps more importantly, no Bluetooth.

But you can't expect everything for the money, and at £1,353 the ThinkPad T40 C122UK is a genuine bargain - you even get a DVD-ROM and CD-RW combo drive included in the bundle, not to mention IBM's embedded security system for hardware-based file encryption. The minimal three-year, return-to-base warranty is forgivable with this in mind, and considering the superb build quality, great screen and fantastic battery life the T40 is a first-class business notebook that almost anyone can afford.

Author: Ben Hardwidge