If you really are wanting a labtop (for laboratory use, and not just a laptop), then the Toughbooks are for you. They are acid resistant. For normal laptop travel use, the high-end thinkpads have great travel features to keep them intact when dropped/bumped/jiggled, and tend to have double the life of Dells, etc. But all thinkpads are not built alike, for this kind of abuse you need the ones with the titanium composite cases (T series and up).