I am hiring two home working software developers. As they'll travel to Cambridge and elsewhere in the world from time to time it makes sense to give them laptops rather than desktops, but those laptops have to be up to the job for software development. Ultra thin but slow is no use - I'd say performance is more important than form factor. A good selection of ports is also important - plenty of USB, 1394 and ideally serial and parallel ports as well.

The IBM T43 series looks interesting - 2GHz for around 1300 UKP plus VAT. That's the ballpark price I'm looking for. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Rob