Right i've got a choice of laptop to use for Uni: IBM ThinkPad T41 Intel Centrino 1.6Ghz 2x256MB DDR 40GB HDD DVD/CDRW 32MB ATI 7500 15" Screen Battery life is between 3.5-4.5 hours Or Lenevo 3000 C100 Intel Celeron-M 1.5Ghz 256mb 533Mhz DDRII 40GB HDD DVD/CDRW Intel GMA 900 128mb dedicated grphx 15" Screen Battery life is between 5-6 hours! The Lenevo is brand new, the T41 about a year old, but my fathers work use's these laptops for all their employees and so i can get hold of free replacement batteries e.t.c and parts.. The only attracting factors for going with the lenevo is that its screen is alot brighter and its got a dedicated 128mb graphics card - but its not enough to play games right? - games like HL2:CSS or Day of Defeat?
IBM ThinkPad T41 coz of everyting. has more ram, more power and the gpu is sh1t faster than the intel Intel Centrino 1.6Ghz 2x256MB DDR 40GB HDD DVD/CDRW 32MB ATI 7500 15" Screen Battery life is between 3.5-4.5 hours however, if your not bothered about games and useing it for business i suggest getting the longer battery life you may need to upgrade your ram if its not too expensife.
Let's compare the good and bad points: Good: 1.6GHz Pentium M (Centrino involves Pentium M CPU's as without one they can't be labelled with the 'Centrino' badge) 512MB RAM Can get hold of replacement parts easily and for free. Bad: Less battery life than the other model. Graphics not as good. Good: Longer Battery Life. Better graphics. Bad: CPU not as good. Less RAM. I say go with the T41 - it's faster, got more RAM and you can get hold of replacement parts easily meaning a spare battery if you need one.
Even if you try to play some games to make the full use of graphics card, your battery will end up very fast! So from my point of view as well IBM should be your go.