What Thinkpad to get?

I've been toying with the idea of upgrading from my T61 - I have dropped it (much to my chagrin, after being so meticulous) about 3 times. Had to replace the optical drive because the pin that holds the eject hook popped out (I had repaired it once, and had the pin to repair again until someone in the house moved my hardware). It still works great after replacing the drive, some cosmetic boo-boos, etc. I'm sure you are enjoying this story.

Anyway, I want to be able to do more with video editing (I use Adobe CS3 - I know it's now old, but for $60 for the suite, I'll take it). And my T61 is slow for what I'd like to do. I have an x120e that I use as a nice portable book (battery life sucks, tho), so I'd prefer a 15.6" rather than a 14.x". This laptop would move infrequently - but I like the option of portability.

I'd like to stay under $1400 USD. I've been out of the game for 4 years (since I purchased the T61), so I'm not sure what specs I'm looking at in terms of processor, gpu, so forth. I also had that great Samsung screen that Lenovo kindly replaced for an LG, so screen info would be great as well - would love to avoid that.

Thanks for reading my rambles. Any help is welcome.

 

"Video editing" and "T61 successor" calls for one of the last W520 FHD which should be possible for 1400 (in the US at least). Nice screen, great RAM upgrade options, solid CPU and GPU power, quite reasonable portability and battery life.

 

Check out the W530 with FHD through the B&N discount

 

What is the B&N discount? I'm interested. Looking at the W520s and W530s right now.

 

Found it. Holy cannoli, that was like almost $500 in savings. Righteous.