Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone,

I'm in magazine advertising sales, and am "on the road" every month or so, primarily traveling via commercial airliner. Thankfully, I'm only on the road a few days at a time, and don't need a notebook computer for much work, except keeping up with my e-mail, and some spreadsheet and word processing work. An Ethernet port, or at least a slot for a PCMCIA card would be nice, for use in hotel rooms for internet access.

I'm looking for some suggestions on a older ThinkPad that would accomplish the three aforementioned tasks well. Certainly, I don't need the latest, and greatest, but something that will stand up to the rigors of travel. Actually, I've been looking at some of the "legacy" ThinkPads such as the 390E, 570, or 600-series. I really don't need a drive (floppy, CD, or DVD) for my application, but one (especially a CD-R/RW) would be nice. I've also looked into the T22-series, since it uses a PIII CPU, rather than the older units mentioned which primarily use a PII.

I want to spend the least amount of money for a used ThinkPad which meets the above usage requirements, and one in which I won't get too upset if it receives a few scratches while moving down the security lines at airports! Weight is really not a factor. Obviously, eBay is one source, as is this forum, in addition to a number of "off-lease" liquidators.

Any suggestions on models would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

Do yourself a favour - get a used T series laptop that sports Windows XP Pro. You should be able to do that under $1,000 (and probably lots of change from the big bill). Then you will have a modern system that will what you need and still be able to be secured against viruses, spyware and the like. ... JD Hurst

JD - Thanks for the advice, but I don't need even a relatively modern one with all the amentities. I have several PC's at home running WinXP Professional, and frankly don't need to spend $1K to meet my minimal requirements for a notebook.

I have an legal unregistered full-edition of Win2KPro that I was thinking about loading onto one of the older ThinkPads. As you know, Win2K requires less resources than WinXP. Win2K meets all the requirements that I need for my basic operation on the road. In fact, I was even thinking about loading Ubuntu Debian-based Linux on it in lieu of Win2K. Not to create a Win vs. Linux debate here, but I have Ubuntu running on one of my tower's, and it's an amazing OS. From an unpartioned HD to surfing the web, installation takes less than 25 minutes, and it recogizes every piece of hardware, and automatically sets up the IP addresses through DHCP on my router - just as a WinXP installation. But, all of this is for another day and another topic . . .

Just looking for suggestions on a basic ThinkPad that is inexpensive, but does the job for what I need - e-mail, word processing, and spreadsheets - that's all. Don

This might just fit the bill. Very reasonably priced new machine with 1 year warranty. $489 (buy it now, 2 available still) and for $50 you can up the ram to 640 meg (check www.newegg.com for the kingmax 512 meg 200 pin sodimm was $44 recently).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 9&tc=photo

This is a Thinkpad R40 series with 20 gig drive, 15 inch XGA display, new product, xp pro, cd-rom (in ultrabay 2000 slot so you can remove it later and add a dvd/cdrw if you'd like), 10/100 ethernet, wireless upgradable via mini-pci slot or pcmcia, ati radeon gpu w/16 meg,128 meg of ram (upgradable to 1 gig, but it uses the i845MP chipset so many people here have upgraded to 2 gig - I have i845Mp in my R40 and currently have 1.5 gig of ram installed) pentium mobile celeron 2.0 gigagertz. Very solid, new machine for the money in my opinion.

BTW, Iim in no way affiliated with CompGeeks, but I have purchased from them before at their website and a friend of mine just bought this unit last week (they've been running a number of $489 buy it now auctions with 3 units available so if you miss out on these 2 there might be more in a few days).

Oops - a typo - it's XP Home not pro. Sorry.

Hmm...

I'm getting an X21, and for what you say you need, such a model would work VERY well.

RetroBox sells a lot of cheap stuff, so look there. Just watch out for three things: pressure marks on the screen (it seems that they've got a BUNCH of T22s with pressure marks - IIRC, they're about $300 for an 800MHz P3, 256MB RAM, a 20GB HDD, and a DVD-ROM), no power adaptor (some don't have one, for some reason), and no optical drive (you can filter those out with multiple searches, though).

I'd say for what you are using the laptop for, a 600X (the Pentium III) should be fine.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4CYN8Z

If you can get one - try the Thinkpad S31

Thanks for all of the input. I bought a very nice "off lease" 600X/500MHz/256MB preloaded with WinXP Pro and Office 2003 for $200.

I will over time upgrade the RAM with the required low-density PC100 SODIMMS, as WinXP likes more RAM, and perhaps replace the HD with a larger one, although the 12GB drive is only about half full now with the addition of other apps.

I did have to purchase a new battery, but I was able to find a new OEM IBM for $35. And, I purchased a brand new Intel CardBus Ethernet PCMCIA card for $5, also on eBay so I can keep up with my e-mail in hotel rooms. I may pick up a PCMCIA 802.11g card in the near future for wireless. So, I have an excellent, and seemingly rugged, "road warrior" for running from plane to plane on all of my business trips for an investment of slightly less than $250.

What's amazing is with the exception of a couple of very minor scrapes on the top cover, the 600X is in as new condition. The screen is perfect, no pressure marks and no dead pixels. This will meet my requirements well. Although this is an "off lease" unit, apparently it was not used very often, or perhaps used more in a stationary mode.

Thanks again to all who gave me suggestions.

thre 600 series is really great... enough room for expansion, and enough power to be a full fledged system, for a reasonable price.

a friend of mine has a 600E, and it [seems to be] tougher than my T40's case, with a keyboard just as good (some people say that the T series has a better keyboard than any other laptop. don't beleive them. the 600 keyboard is just as good, perhaps better )

bplaut wrote:....with a keyboard just as good (some people say that the T series has a better keyboard than any other laptop. don't beleive them. the 600 keyboard is just as good, perhaps better)

My T20 has a keyboard that's more like a trampoline! Boing! Boing! Boing!