you can't use a mac OS X notebook if you want to do WebSphere stuff - unfortunately WSAD/Rational App Developer and WebSphere don't yet run on OS X.
thinkpads are great. If i were you I'd get one of those second-gen centrino's with the higher bus speeds - like a thinkpad T43 or a Dell Inspiron 6000.
You'll need 2GB of RAM for Rational /WebSphere v6's development tools though...
Dave Clark<br />Senior WebSphere Architect<br /><a href="http://www.versant.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Versant Open Access - JDO2 & EJB3</a>
I agree. Here's the link: http://ej-technologies/jprofiler - if it wasn't for jprofiler, we would need to
run our stuff on 16 servers instead of 3.