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.

>>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...