I have a Dell 1501 , it's not bad ; can't remember how much it cost but couldn't have been over £500 and I've used it constantly for something like 2 years . I'm not a big fan of Dell , I got it as it was well speced for the cost and a reputable company , I wanted something cheap that would last a year and in that time I could determine exactly what it was I wanted out of a laptop ( I hadn't owned one previously )
Only problems I have with it are it's over heating and the hassle involved in stripping it down to clean the dust out of it as it sucks it in like a Kate Moss Hoover . The screen is a bit slack now - lets see opened/closed twice daily for 2 years so thats about 730 times moved . Mrs has one too ( like dirtjumper we bought as a couple , cringe
) and hers doesn't overheat as much and I've never had to strip it down for a clean unlike mine which needs doing every 4 months ; she got the next model up that has an Intel processor whereas mine is a crappy AMD Sempron . my reasoning being I would be better off saving the extra and getting something better once id determined what later on .
Which I did ; a IBM Thinkpad x31 , which funnily is a few years older . its great , tiny . I use mine on the sofa arm and my wrist gets a bit sore on the corner of the dell , the x31 is a lot smaller so is more comfortable and as i sit so close to it anyway I don't need such a big screen .
While the Dell is very sturdy and certainly feels like it could take being dropped , the x31 eeks of quality , it's well thought out too , 4 screws and the keyboard is out and I can get to everything . Thinkpads are business laptops , it's their primary use so you should give an old one a lot of thought .
Check out
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:Models
I think an older T series will suit .
Check here for any possible model related problems .
http://forum.thinkpads.com/index.php?si ... e1c4cc4638
