The ugly duckling of Lenovo's ThinkPad line has become a swan. Not long ago, R-Series ThinkPads were regarded as value-oriented, general-purpose machines at best. The R Series was a bulkier, non-widescreen version of the world-class ThinkPad T Series. People usually settled for an R-Series laptop when they couldn't pay T-Series money. But that's all changed with the ThinkPad R61 ($1,768 direct). The new model is more media-friendly than its predecessors. It has a widescreen now and assimilates the elegance of the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Widescreen, an Editors' Choice. With all these enhancements, there are now remarkably few differences between the two ThinkPads. Though it still won't be supplanting the Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch) as the Editors' Choice in its category, the R61 is a nice, affordable solution if you're willing to do without WWAN and discrete graphics.