Used Thinkpad recommendation for under $300

[toddreg]

I am trying to help locate a decent laptop for a member of the US Navy who is coming back to the states for the next two years. He is signed up for some online college courses and needs a laptop which I am trying to do some of the legwork for him on as he is at sea most of the time at present.

Can some of the other members here help point me in the direction of which models of Thinkpads I might be able to locate for $300 or less. I don't know a lot about laptops in general however I do have a T61 but I use it for an emergency backup at work and really don't want to give it up. I also have an old Type 2723 but the keypad doesn't work right. Would it be worth fixing?

[rkawakami]

If the online college courses are heavy on videos, then you're going to need something fairly "modern", in addition to your friend having a good broadband pipe to work with. I'm going to assume that reliability is near the top of the list as this would be an "only" computer. One important thing is form factor; will the laptop be tied down to a desk during all of its usage (W series, maybe T as well) or is something more mobile desired (X series)? With mobility, how important is battery life? Also, what about "extras" such as webcam, WWAN, minimum screen size/resolution and peripheral (USB and video) ports?

I don't know if spending money on your R40 would be beneficial. Certainly the $10-$20 for a new keyboard is okay but how much memory does it have and what OS is on it? With XP at EOL and the laptop being used for another two years online, I'd go with Windows 7. That means probably a minimum of 2GB of memory, which I believe the R40 can do but if you only have 256MB in it now, then that's another $30 or so. And he would still have a Pentium M at best. I would avoid any T6x with an nVidia GPU; Intel is okay. Anything newer in a T series than the T6x should do, up to probably a T420 or T510. Minimum X series I'd say would be the X60/X61. If he needs an optical drive at all times and doesn't want to deal with an Ultrabase, then an X300/X301 would do. If not and portability and battery life are highly desired, then an X200s system. I think all of these could be had < $300 fully equipped.

Lately there have been a lot of T4xx systems being sold on eBay. I've managed to get several T410 systems for under $130 (shipped) and re-sold them for not much more than that. They came without hard drives, but they all had 4GB of memory and good batteries. Ones that are ready to go out-of-the-box can be had for under $200.

[toddreg]

To respond to some of your questions.

1- Mobility is probably not a huge issue as these will be online courses at this point.

2- It does need an integrated webcam and Wifi obviously

Of all the possibilities which offers the best bang for the buck?

If you see anything that suits the bill on the forum give me a heads up. There were a lot of recommendations in your advice.

Thanks

[rkawakami]

Well, there were a lot of different recommendations but now you've narrowed it down somewhat. The requirement of a integral webcam points to a T410 (or similar) or X300 (or similar). What's different between these two systems are CPU design, weight and screen size/resolution. T410 comes with Core i5 (or the rarer i7) while the X300 has Core 2 Duo. Either one should be fine for the intended application. The T410 has 14.1" WXGA (1280x800) or WXGA+ (1440x900) displays and can be up to about 5.5 lbs. X300/X301 only have WXGA+ screens but are also only 13.3" diagonal and top out around 3.5 lbs. Both have optical drives built in. Wireless is a given. The T410 has longer battery life if you use the 9-cell extended version. It also has more expandability via ports not available on the X300; eSATA, Firewire, Displayport (is available on X301).

I'd say either one of those would be fine so what it really comes down to is screen size (14.1" vs 13.3"). Mobility could be a concern since online courses are designed to be taken "anywhere". Personally, I would go with the T410.

[bit_twiddler]

Either a T410 or T420 would be an excellent machine for home use with some portability.
The quality of screens vary, but the T420 (and, I believe, the T410) both have displayports,
so you can hook up a better monitor at home (although nothing exotic like a 4K display.)

If you get a T410, make sure that you get one with an esata-p port (which was optional
on that model AFAIK.)

I'd also recommend picking up a mini-dock plus series 3 for it - they are cheap on ebay,
and they really extend the usefulness of the machine. Lenovo made other mini-docks for it,
but the "plus" model is the most fully featured.

[ajkula66]

Personally, I would go with the T410.

I second this recommendation.

On the "bang for the buck" level, a reasonably spec'd T410 is almost impossible to beat nowadays.