IBM ThinkPad T41 TC12FUK

Looking around the edges shows the T41 to be a little light on ports and connectors, but the essentials are all there. On the left, there are two PC Card slots, headphone and mic jacks, an RJ-45 connector for the Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet adaptor, a V.90 modem, S-Video out and two USB 2 ports. The rear sports a single parallel port, no serial connector, and the right-hand side has a VGA connector. Features are rounded off with the front-mounted infrared port. FireWire is conspicuous by its absence.

Performance-wise, the T41 didn't blow our socks off, with an application benchmark score of 1.18. This isn't a significant step up from that of the T40, but then the basic specification isn't very different. However, as with the T40, the payoff comes with superb battery life: the 4.4Ah power pack lasted one hour, 55 minutes in our intensive battery test and a full five hours under light use.

The T41 is an incremental improvement on previous models, although it nonetheless remains a superbly designed machine that will easily cope with the rigours of everyday use. We've seen faster notebooks, but rarely have we seen such a finely honed balance of features, battery life, ruggedness and portability for such a good price.

Author: David Fearon