Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch
From £1,455
The ThinkPad X1 Carbon is Lenovo's flagship business laptop and now the Chinese company has improved the model by adding a touchscreen to run with Windows 8. This has the effect of bulking up the chassis slightly to 21mm thick and 151kg in weight, but it's as durable as ever and the carbon fibre casing can easily withstand a knock or two.
Power users won't be disappointed as Lenovo will let you choose either an i5 or i7 processor with up to 8GB RAM and a 180GB SSD. The 14-inch display is a ten finger multitouch screen with HD+ resolution and anti-glare coating that means you can work in brightly lit environments without irritating distractions.
Where the Carbon Touch really comes into its own is the array of business-friendly features that Lenovo has included. Along with a fingerprint scanner, there's RapidCharge technology to effectively charge the machine from dead in 45 minutes, and the battery itself will give you a good seven hours of usage from a full charge.
It's not perfect – the integrated graphics card isn't up to the task of heavy graphics processes like professional editing software. But Lenovo offers an excellent three-year warranty that might sway you towards this machine.