Granted the last time I was in school of any kind was about five years ago for law school when laptops were starting to become more en vogue. I never used one in class, didn't see the need for it and didn't feel like carrying one around. To each their own, but there are probably few subjects/areas of study that actually require a laptop for in-class note taking/participation/interactive study, etc.
I can see why a professor wouldn't want them because there are students who just goof off and browse the web or play games; however, when you are at the university level and the students (or their parents) are actually paying their own money to be there... its their choice if they want to slack off so long as they aren't disruptive.

In my high school laptops are mandatory. I'm using my computer at school right now actually. Steam's logged in... hehe.

I bought a netbook specifically for that purpose and it was the best purchase I made last year, utter delight to not have a 3 hour class end with crippling wrist pain from constant writing.
Basically my approach if there's resistance to anything (not that I had it with my netbook) is to force the person to justify it, if they can't then I just do whatever I want. Then again my nature is that of a contradictory smartarse

I can scribble notes faster than I can type them, so I write all my stuff. The problem is trying to read those notes again.
But handwriting is much better for drawing diagrams.

Hey, whats wrong with MSPaint??

I suck at drawing with a mouse. Not that I'm that great at drawing with a pencil.

This. This. This.
It's not about just copying down everything that gets said. It's about actually paying attention to what's being said, then condensing it into a format that's usable TO YOU. The actual jotting down of stuff to remember relevant points is actually less important in the long run than what you do in the class itself where you toss out all the other stuff that you've deemed not relevant or that you believe you'll be able to remember (because it jives with stuff you've picked up from other lectures or reading assignments or whatever.)
I've found that the people who are the most successful aren't the ones with enormous stacks of notes, but the ones that walk out of a lecture with maybe a page or two of very important key points and a few supporting points and most of the connections made in their heads with a few more notes written down on, say, other things to read up on in order to further their understanding of the material that was covered.
The hard work doesn't come from the writing or the copying down of what the professor is saying, it comes from actually sifting through and sorting the wheat from the chaff. Some people swear by recorders and laptops and such like that, but I feel all that does is give you an extra layer of stuff to sort through later. And makes you a little complacent because you feel that since you have the recorder to fall back on, you don't have to worry so much about doing the actual sorting when you're in the lecture, you can always just "go through it later." You just end up wasting time doing that sorting later, though, and you also don't have the benefit of being able to ask a question on the spot.

Heh, that works only if you're able to actually READ your notes afterwards :D Also, I have somewhat short attention span when it comes to learning stuff, actually, in maths lectures, I always have one earphone with quietly played music so I can stop listening and focus on something else without getting completely distracted. Might sound weird, but when I have started applying this method, I was't sleeping in the middle of the lecture and I came out of that room with understanding of given subject in my head, so I guess it works :D

Talk to your lecturer and get him to set the lectures to music and dancing, good solution all round

I'm in grad school for a business degree, the classes are usually 20-30 people at max and require a large amount of discussion/interaction. So far nearly all my professors have said that they do not allow laptops at the start of each semester, mostly because of the clicking, the distraction it causes for people sitting behind people with laptops (its actually very distracting to see a shiny lit up screen in front of you while trying to pay attention)

I'm a grad student and often teach undergrads either as a teaching assistant or instructor. I can see both sides of the issue, so I try to appeal to both. I reserve the back row(s) for laptop users. That way they can still use their laptops, but their screens aren't visually distracting to others. You might suggest this policy to professors that have implemented a full ban as it is a nice compromise.

My brother has a touchscreen laptop (Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook) issued by the school, and they use MS Office OneNote as their only notebook.

Banning laptops is nothing. I was kicked out from class for doodling :)
Anyway, we don't have any rules, official or otherwise, against notebooks but people rarely use them for taking notes. Lectures are not mandatory, so you don't see many students there and classes are (or should be) discussion-oriented. The most 'uni-related' thing they're used for is making slides.

I've never done it...

Not much for notes.
More for playing L4D. :)