A 2007 (maybe 2006) HP EliteBook was the last non MacBook Pro laptop I had. I loved that thing and it was incredibly easy to add my own RAM and an SSD to. Pretty sure it maxed out at 8GB.

I'm sure they're sleeker now but that thing was pretty thick and the batteries on them seemed to wear down and die very fast. Bonus points for having an AWESOME dock that worked near flawlessly in Windows 7 for me, not so much, but not bad with Ubuntu 10 Desktop. Also you could get extended batteries and the batteries swapped easily, so I had a pair that could get me through a day at a client's site with no power if I needed.

I can't imagine I'll go back, I love my MBPs, but I would check out the latest EliteBooks if I was going that way again.