Unfortunately, these factors can often work against one another. Travel laptops must be small and lightweight but durable enough to withstand the abuse they are sure to encounter on the road--everything from dropped bags to spilled coffee. They must have powerful processors capable of supporting heavy workloads while not squandering valuable battery life when electrical outlets are unavailable. Most importantly, they must be built with security in mind, so valuable data isn't vulnerable to corruption or theft.
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While it would be nice to find a laptop that can fulfill each of these requirements, it's likely that a consumer will have to settle for just a few at a time. The search for the right business travel laptop should start by weighing the importance of four primary factors--performance, durability, longevity and security. Obviously, the needs of a business-class passenger on a cross-country flight will be different from those of a contractor overseeing a construction site. The former will prefer a laptop that has the longest battery life, the latter a heavy-duty notebook resistant to damage from dust and debris. The one feature everyone requires, however, is performance. It's no fun to have to struggle with sluggish performance when all you want to do is get things done. If you value speed and power above all else, you're going to want a laptop equipped with a powerful processor. Both the Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 and the Asus P30A notebooks are outfitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors--burly, high-powered CPUs that can blaze through difficult tasks. They are also excellent options for those looking to take a multimedia show on the road, with high-definition features that will add spark to any presentation. The SL400 and P30A both have integrated HDMI outputs, allowing users to directly connect their laptops and media to high-definition televisions and monitors through the best-quality connection available. The SL400 can be specifically tailored to your needs on Lenovo's Web site, which allows shoppers to attain a configuration that suits their needs. A remarkably robust model explicitly designed to resist spills and drops, an SL400 base model costs around $600. The downside is that the SL400 is relatively heavy, weighing 5.5 pounds. The P30A weighs only 3.3 pounds. In exchange for the lighter load, the P30A user must settle for a slightly slower processor powered by a four-cell battery. Durability comes in many forms, not all of them what you may expect. Consider the Sony Vaio Z series notebooks. At a mere 3.4 pounds, these sleek, portable laptops are very lightweight. The attractive design of the Z series might lead one to believe that Sony chose style over strength, but that's not the case. The Z series laptops are encased in carbon-fiber and aluminum armor, which protects the display and body from scratches or impacts. They also contain Sony's G-Sensor shock protection, which detects sharp or sudden movements and locks the hard disk so its moving parts aren't damaged while in use. You could also do away with the hard-disk drive altogether and opt for a solid-state drive, which uses no moving parts. The Z series notebooks are all-around winners, but they don't come cheap. The base model starts at nearly $1,800 and any upgrades will drive the price up further. While strength and speed are nice to have, neither of them matter if your battery isn't full. Battery longevity is of paramount concern to travelers who need to get work done but are unable to plug in. Longevity depends on how much power the laptop consumes during operation and how capacious its battery is. For example, the Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 and the Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810T both have six-cell lithium-ion batteries. However, due to differences in power consumption and efficiency, the Acer can squeeze nine hours out of its battery, the Lenovo just over three. If you're paranoid about the data on your hard drive falling into the wrong hands, you might be interested in a feature that ensures that only your hands can access it: a fingerprint scanner, which uses biometric security to lock down your device. It's a fairly common feature, though it requires an upgrade and is usually not included with standard configurations. Lenovo, Asus, Hewlett-Packard and Dell all have fingerprint scanner options, so if you keep your fingers with you at all times, your important files and documents will be off-limits to others. Once you're certain of your priorities, finding the right laptop for business travel need not be exasperating. Simply imagine the situation you'd least like to be in while in transit--being bogged down by a slow processor or watching your screen flicker off as the battery dies--and keep that in mind when you make your final decision
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