A great keyboard and a great TrackPoint make for a great machine. I think it was 2002 that I got my first-ever laptop: a ThinkPad. Still made by IBM in those days, my ThinkPad A30p was a monster. Coming in a hair under 8lbs, it had all the bells and whistles: a 1.2GHz Pentium III-M, a full 1GB of RAM, 48GB hard disk, a 15-inch 1600×1200 display paired with a 32MB ATI GPU, integrated CD-RW, 56K modem, 10/100 Ethernet.

For me, the ThinkPad came to represent the ideal laptop. The sleek elegance of the all-black body, the rich features, the fine keyboard with its TrackPoint red nipple; it was everything I wanted from a computer.

It wasn't cheap, of course. As the consummate business laptops, the ThinkPads were never cheap. But it was always a good value, with the build quality and extensive warranty options making it an eminently dependable workhorse.