Laptop buying advice

Hi /comp/.

I'm looking for a really cheap laptop and was wondering if you could advise me. It'll mainly be used for word processing, possibly some Photoshop, and watching anime/films etc (so the ability to play H.264 encoded files is preferred).

My budget is small... possibly around $500 tops, preferably less. What kind of spec would I need for those requirements, and what can I expect to get with that money?

I'm guessing I might have to go the ebay route (but would rather not if possible). Do you have any tips on what to get or what to avoid?

Thanks in advance.

$500 won't get you a decent new laptop. If you're keen to avoid eBay (probably wise, since eBay is full of lying bastards and con artists in the desirable tech items stakes), look for a company that sells used/refurbished laptops (like ex-business models and such). You should be able to find a late P3/early P4 era laptop that will suit your requirements and come in under $500. Look for a good brand like Toshiba, IBM, etc.

http://www.laptopcloseout.com/
http://www.usanotebook.com/
http://www.laptopoutlet.com/

All these sites have a few sub-$500 refurbished laptops, typically P3s in the 1200MHz range. Stick Windows 2000 on them instead of XP for better performance, or maybe another stick of memory, and you've got yourself a nice usable laptop right there.

>>2

Thanks for the info. There are a whole load of laptops on eBay from seemingly respectable refurbishers, which I'll probably go for.

A friend recommended an IBM Thinkpad X30 (P3 1.2GHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD etc) which are going for about £320 ($560ish). Although there are other systems with P4's and a bit more RAM, I've been told that the Thinkpads are really sturdy and worth the bit extra.

What do you think... a good buy, or any other recommendations?

>>3
I grabbed my Thinkpad (T23, 1.13GHz PIII, 512MB RAM, 20GB HDD DVD/CD ROM, etc) off ebay UK for £300. Just look for someone with a shop and watch their other sales closely. I reccomend tier1 if you're in the UK.

Thinkpads are wonderful laptops, though the X-series can be sketchy. They're great, portable, and insaney light (~3lbs), but earlier models sacrifice some functionality to get there. Something to look for with the X-series is if it comes with an optical drive and/or dock. If you were installing Linux booting off of other removable storage wouldn't be so bad, but if you're going to put WinXP on it...

>>4

The ones I've seen (indeed, from Tier1) have a separate USB DVD/CDR unit included, so that's ok. Are there any other areas that the X series sacrifice functionality?
I'm pretty tempted to order one of these now...

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