Take the new Top Cover Roll Cage for instance. In addition to the original hard disk drive magnesium roll cage, the new roll cage provides rock solid reliability with top to bottom protection. The new honeycomb-designed roll cage helps to cushion the laptop’s LCD, reinforcing the screen and helping reduce stress on the display structure and Wi-Fi antenna. The new Top Cover Roll Cage reduces the stress on the LCD screen by 25% on average when the machine is dropped compared to previous ThinkPads. Combined with features like the ‘air bag like’ sensor of Lenovo’s Active Protection System and a shock-mounted hard disk drive, the ThinkPad R61 provides one of the highest levels of physical protection in a system today.

ThinkPad R61 notebook include an integrated, easy-loading modular bay for fast swapping of  Ultrabay optical and storage devices. Ultrabay optical and storage device let you tailor your ThinkPad notebook to meet your computing needs. The Ultrabay Slim, available on ThinkPad R61 enhances portability by supporting lighter, thinner 9.5mm device options.
The IBM Lenovo Thinkpad R61 internal swappable bay  can be easily removed and replaced with other optional ultra bay devices, such as a second battery  DVDRW multi recorder  or a second hard drive.

The IBM lenovo Thinkpad R61 series includes both a pointing stick and a touchpad centered in the wrist rest. There are four mouse buttons: two below the spacebar  and two below the touchpad.
The Track Point navigation featuring a pointing stick, touchpad and multiple mouse buttons lets you choose your favorite way to navigate the cursor on the screen.  The pointing stick makes it easy to get the cursor where you want it to go on the screen. when combined with the scroll button (located between the two upper mouse buttons) you can scroll through web pages and long documents with ease.  Just hold down the scroll button and push the pointing stick up or down to scroll to where you want on a page

Like an airbag for your data
The Active Protection System (APS), available on many ThinkPad® notebook models, employs airbag-like technology to protect the hard drive. The system has an integrated motion sensor that continuously monitors the movement of the notebook, and, if a sudden change in motion is detected, it temporarily stops the hard drive to protect it from a potential crash.
This ThinkVantage Technology provides up to four times greater impact protection than systems without it and helps reduce down-time and support costs. APS can greatly improve overall system reliability by providing enhanced hard drive protection from shock. Using the latest technology to constantly monitor the movement of your ThinkPad computer, users can feel confident that their data will be better protected in the event of a drop or similar potentially damaging event.

Help when you need it most
Rescue and Recovery is a one button recovery and restore solution that includes a set of self recovery tools to help users diagnose, get help and recover from a virus or other system crashes quickly, even if the primary operating system will not boot.
It helps with everything from complete software failure to occasions when you need only to restore a corrupted or deleted file.
Rescue and Recovery recovers files, folders or even your entire previously-saved system image, including data, applications and operation system. The File Rescue utility can help retrieve files that were not backed up prior to the problem and save them to a storage device. The backup and recovery function, now more efficient, requires less hard drive space than the previous version and supports a broad range of external devices for recovering information, including CD, DVD, network, second hard drive and USB hard drives. If your hard drive needs replacement due to mechanical failure.

Integrated Dual Ban WiFi
ThinkPad  Series models offer a variety of integrated Wi-Fi wireless solutions, allowing you to experience the freedom of wireless networking when you're ready using one of the new Wi-Fi adapters. R61 notebooks are rigorously tested verify they'll work with other wireless products.
just one of the wireless performance features on ThinkPad R61 notebooks — is built into the display cover for optimal signal reception. This combined design supports 802.11b and G wireless to help maximize coverage and performance for improved wireless LAN connectivity around the world.

Can stop a coffee spill from becoming a disaster
A simple accident with a cup of coffee could spell disaster for an ordinary notebook. But ThinkPad notebook keyboards are sealed and sit in a tray, so liquids are less likely to get through to damage the system.

Discreet illumination for every ThinkPad notebook keyboard
Situated on the top edge of the display, this integrated light illuminates the keyboard on any ThinkPad notebook. It’s ideal for catching up on work in a dark environment without disturbing those around you.