Pretty awful eh? I hope not too bad. It does come quite low down on this chart but I'm sure it'll be acceptable for what we want.

Sian's wanted one for a while but I've never been that bothered about getting one. I had my mother in law's laptop here last week to fix something and it was very useful being able to sit downstairs together to look at stuff online instead of cramming together on this computer.

If it's total crap I'll blame you for not replying soon enough :P

Picked it up on my way home today (first time I've done that with an eBay purchase) and it's as I expected really. Not blazingly fast but certainly not slow just for browsing the net.

 

It originally came with Vista but they changed it to XP. I might try 7 on it. Seems a bargain for £67. Shame about the battery (completely dead, unplugging the power turns it straight off) though but not too bothered about using it plugged in.

Well I'm wanting to buy a laptop again. pRobably. The last one got stood on and broke the screen. £50 seems a lot to spend on such an old laptop for a new screen.

Once again not sure whether to go refurb, eBay (with a proper charger/battery this time) or a cheap new one. Hmmmmm.

Tempted by this Dell E6410. I think it looks good for the price. Certainly far better than I had before.

Or there was an Acer Aspire E1-something for about £100 but can't find that now. Maybe it ended.

Or a Lenovo T410. I like the look of them. 4GB, Core i5, no camera like some.

Or this Toshiba Ecra A11.
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=281397419568&alt=web

Looks pretty good. Is 1366x768 a standard laptop res? Think my broken one is 1280x800. Looking at Core i5 laptops now.

Surprising how many eBay listings have picture of the laptops showing the Windows key.

Haha, and I've just realised what some listings meant when they said Windows Key: yes/no. Not the keyboard, the software key.

I'd go for a T-series ThinkPad or an HP ProBook, they're usually built like tanks. I'm also thinking of getting something like that, for the rare times I need a laptop - but I need something with decent screen resolution and yet not too heavy...

Thanks. The T410 does look rather good (or maybe a T520). Can even get one with a year warranty but looking at around £250 for that. Might be worth it though. I'll have a look at the HPs later.

I read a review that said the T410 comes with either 1280x800 or 1440x900 screens. Can only find the higher ones in other countries.

And would it resist being stood on if it's built like a tank?

All done. I just purchased a Lenovo T410 in excellent condition. Core i5, 4GB, 160GB. Working battery and charger.

Hopefully this will turn out to be a better purchase than the first laptop. Ended up spending way more on spare batteries and chargers.

Woo hoo. Arrived already. I like when new toys arrive so quickly.

And it is sooooo much better than the first laptop I bought. Pretty nippy. Lovely keyboard on it too which is one thing that a lot of people praise the Thinkpads for. And it even has a nipple :O

Nice laptop, and also better (in some ways) than brand new ones.

The T410 is the last larger ThinkPad with a 16:10 screen (ones after this downgraded it to 16:9), and the second last with the "classic" keyboard (modern ThinkPads now have the debatable "chicklet" keyboards instead).

I own an X201 (the smaller version of the T410) and after upgrading it to a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM, it screams along and is almost as fast as my missus's new ultrabook. Add in the awesome keyboard and nicer screen and it's a lovely little machine - despite being 4 years old.

:( still upset about the lack of 16:10 screens?

Yep. 16:9 sucks donkey balls :(

I was torn between this laptop and the T510 which has a 15.6" screen but 1366x768 resolution. Didn't quite seem right having a bigger screen with a lower vertical res.

Not sure if I've tried a chicklet style keyboard. How recent are they? The keys on this are surprisingly solid and wobble free. Best laptop keyboard I've ever tried.

Just realised that it only has 2GB of RAM though. The eBay listing was wrong :O The laptop also came with loads of family photos. They'd done a fresh install of Windows 7 and left the old user files in the Windows.old folder. All gone now, including 7 with a fresh install of 8.

Yeah, that's 16:9 for you. Introduced purely to cut costs - hence why I dislike them.

Bummer about the RAM. And Windows 8 for that matter  ;-) . I can post you a stick of 4GB DDR3 RAM if you like for the price of a stamp/envelope. PM me if you're interested.

The chicklet keyboards (also known as scrabble-tile) are the ones where each key is flat and clearly separated from the next one by a plastic/metal gap between them. They were introduced due to looking more "modern" and "stylish". They're not necessarily bad and certainly do look better, but I do personally prefer typing on the classic one myself. Classic Keyboard, Chicklet Keyboard.

Oohh, yes please. What speed is it and is it likely to work with this laptop? Do DIMMs need to be used in pairs? Or is that something to do with dual channel? Not that I know how many DIMMs are actually in this now.

Ah yes, I see the difference in the keyboards. Some have pretty big spacing compared to that laptop. I like this one just fine.

Should work fine. I'll test it in my X201 first to be sure. Probably a DDR3 10600 stick. We've plenty from work which are pulled as spares from scrapped machines, such that we have a box full of them (two of which found their way into my X201...)

Well it turns out I actually have the higher resolution 1440x900 screen. Oohh. That wasn't on the eBay listing. And neither was the built in camera.

Nice!! Personally, I'd take that over 2GB of RAM any day of the week, as the latter can be easily fixed. Shove an SSD in it as well at some point and it'll romp along very nicely :)