If you pick up any good business laptop (Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Latitude, etc.) you’ll notice it’s built very solidly. Most use magnesium alloy and other tough materials (carbon fiber, ABS plastics) to ensure excellent durability. Most also come with hard drive protection to prevent any sort of data loss. Any good business laptop should be able to take 3 foot falls and survive, though don’t try.

Most are geared towards business user. Generally they’re not as pretty as consumer laptops and have more of a "professional" look. You won’t find any glitzy, uber-shiny plasticy stuff. Most are black or gray and unobtrusive and boxy. They also generally have matte screens as glossy screens don’t work well in office environments. They also have beefed up security, sometimes offering fingerprint readers and other features.

Also, most don’t include junk software or trialware.

Support is also generally better. Angering your corporate customers that place massive 1000+ PC orders is never a good idea, so support and warranty service is usually very good.

Small business laptops, like your Thinkpad Edge are in between. They’re usually prettier and offer more consumer end features, though retain some of the toughness and security features.

Here’s a really good post about business laptops:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035948723&postcount=6

Liquid cooling is strictly for extreme overclockers tweaking the highest-end components, standard air cooling is the cost-effective, low-maintenance choice.

Bluray and dedicated graphics as well as a core I5 for $700
I think the best of the selection is clear