It's no surprise that the W700ds is a communications powerhouse with as well as 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless networking. There's a 1.3-megapixel webcam on top of the display.

As far as software is concerned, there's Lenovo's usual group of helpful utilities -- software for connecting to Wi-Fi networks, creating a recover DVD, managing power use, updating software and more. There are also apps for using the stylus, videoconferencing (using Skype) and calibrating the color on the system's monitors. The system uses Windows Vista Business with Service Pack 1 updates and has a one-year warranty.

All this adds up to the most powerful notebook I've seen. It attained a phenomenal score of 1,210.9 on , about 50% higher than HP's Pavilion HDX 9203 and closer to a gaming desktop PC or high-end workstation. The system's 7,800 milliamp-hour battery pack was able to power the system for a reasonable 2 hours and 34 minutes on a charge while working on a wireless network. While the Wi-Fi is able to move only a middling 12.3Mbit/sec. of data over an 802.11g link five feet from the router, it had an exceptional range of 150 feet.

While vendors such as Acer, Toshiba and HP employ big-screen notebooks in the name of entertainment, the ThinkPad W700ds is all about business, making it perfect for everything from editing video to working with high-end computation and visualization programs.

It's true that, at a price of over $5,000, the notebook is about as expensive as it gets these days. (You can drop the price to $3,600 if you're willing to accept a single screen one with one hard drive, but what fun is that?) However, if your work (or play) requires this level of power and performance, it's well worth the price and weight.