[rplnt]

I've never had any other notebook as a "business" one. I only bough used ones, as they are pretty expensive new, but sometimes you get one still in warranty. And that's the best thing there is about business laptops. Your laptop broke? Next day there's UPS guy picking it up, and the day after you have it repaired/changed. No need to deal with a classic warranty, taking it anywhere, etc...

Oh, and the ease of maintenance. To open it, you get one screw on Dell Latitude, maybe two on Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad. 10+ on acers/asuses and whatnot. Not to mention you can't even open some of those. And with the NBD warranty comes that they will just send you parts you request and can replace yourself, without taking the notebook from you.

The build quality is also somewhere else. I would never a buy a "consumer" laptop, nor I would recommend anyone to buy them. I'm convinced they are intentionally designed like crap.

[Gracana]

I owned a thinkpad and I was not impressed with its repairability. It was a T61. You can get at the RAM and HD easily enough, but the rest is not made to come apart easily. Lots of taped bits and subtly different fasteners: I think I counted about 65 screws of 8 or so sizes when I disassembled it to replace the motherboard.

All of the thinkpads from that T61 on have seemed like filmsy crap. They look sturdy, but the "metal hinges" are just covers over regular hinges, and there are lots of unsupported plastic bits that are squishy. Try pushing on the bezel at the bottom of your screen. Squish. I also hated the bit of wavy plastic with rattly buttons they put above the keyboard, which just screamed low-quality. My friend's 240 had the same issues. It seems like the thinkpad line is the same as everything else now, they just happen to have chunky industrial styling.

[rplnt]

Ah, good to know. I only had T42 from the ThinkPad line, still IBM.

[Gracana]

Mhmm. I had a T40 and it was awesome. I wish they still made them like that.