Gateway also made a nice laptop before they went bust. I've seen these plastic mats for keyboards(kinda like mobile phone covers) that protect your keyboard, might be an idea in a workshop(cant remember where I saw them tho, some computer show or something. IBM thinkpads are also really nice, very thin. As to fitting all the specs on the screen at the same time I'd say you want a laptop that can do a resolution of 1024x768, problem with that is laptops that do that are usually only 1-2 years old, so I'm not sure if you could get something under $1K...