Advice for an ultra portable laptop

[hammermtl]

Hey guys

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for business use. Unfortunately I believe that my needs contradict each other.

1. I need something small and ultra portable with great battery life 6+ hours.

2. I need lots of processing power. typically i'll be running an excel financial model which uses massive memory, word, visio, project, outlook, powerpoint, photoshop with all the other programs running in the back (messenger, media, iexplorer...)

am I expecting too much from a laptop? What would you recommend i get to fill my needs?

so far i've looked at the alienware sentia, sony vaio T series, dell latitude X1 and the ibm thinkpad X40 and X41 convertable tablet. I liked the ibm because of the integrated fingerprint reader but was unpleased with its lack of an optical drive.

The alienware didnt have integrated bluetooth and i've heard not so great things about viao's.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Josh

[Gee]

Go with the IBM X Series. I have an X24, and it is a great notebook. I find that I never need the optical drive. All it does it add to the weight and drain the battery. If you need to install anything, jack it into a network and install over a shared resource.