Favorite "Road Warrior" laptop?

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,885
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I work for a large consulting firm and am on the road a lot doing on-site work. Over the years, I've found the perfect portable laptop has to have the following:

- No more than a 14" screen
- At least a 5 hour battery
- A good keyboard/trackpad
- A sleep function that actually works
- All ports with no dongles (Ethernet, USB 3, e-SATA, DVD drive)
- 2 prong AC adapter.
- Sturdy construction.

I was thinking about it the other day, and am at the conclusion the best portable laptop I've ever used is my Thinkpad T440p
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It fits all the boxes and I find myself missing it if I don't have it with me.
- It has an SSD and gets a good 5-8 hrs battery life
- Closing the lid puts it to sleep, opening it wakes it up instantly, and the function actually works! A lot of HP and Dell laptops take a good minute to start back up, and they use a lot of battery power while in sleep mode
- It has one of the best laptop keyboards available- they're mechanical keys that give good feedback for touch typing
- The trackpad works nearly as well as a Macbook trackpad, plus you have a secondary "nub" pointer for precision pointing.
- The unique AC charger is shaped like a large USB plug for easy insertion (that's what she said) and it has a two prong plug, so it can be plugged into more places
- All ports are built in, so I can attach pretty much anything thrown at me
- It has a rubberized black paint coating, making it scratch and bump resistant
- One screw holds the access panel in place, making upgrading super easy

Just in case I end up losing my partner some day, are there any other laptops out there you guys would recommend for people always on the go? We're partnered with HP now, so there's no chance I'll get another Thinkpad, and their Probook/Elitebook line went the way of Apple with their aluminum unibody dent-magnets.