Thinkpad x230 I've had one for a few months now and it's been excellent, good keyboard, great Linux support and really good battery life (with the 9-cell batte

Thinkpad x230 I've had one for a few months now and it's been excellent, good keyboard, great Linux support and really good battery life (with the 9-cell battery I can get 8hrs+). It's nice and compact, and pretty darn light, if a little on the thick side. With 8gb of RAM, 128gb SSD, and a midrange Core i5 it runs about $1200-1300, but you could probably buy the RAM/SSD separately and save a fair amount. The one weak point is the screen resolution (1366x768), but the screen is IPS and very good quality otherwise.