I faced this dilemma in late 2004 when my trusty win95 Toshiba laptop which I loved was too skimpy on max 20mb memory to go forth (that laptop had a scsi port on the back, very forward looking for the day, allowing me to attach an external zip drive that gave me lots of storage...I can still see my almost 100 zip disks).
I agonized over the new and expensive laptops finally settling on a refurbished IBM x31 notebook with pIV1.4 250mbRAM/40gbHDD with some legacy ports (EPP,Serial) but also the latest/greatest (2xUSB2,SD) and some I never used (firewire4pin) with winXPpro. Thence I have upgraded now to 2gbRAM and 120gbHDD (both of which I got on eBay and installed in minutes myself). I still use this all the time and have taken it all over using it in both the USA and the EU (wifi gets me online everywhere). It was cheap and has stood the test of time; the vendor was certified IBM and it was, on receipt, indistinguishable from brand new. The original battery still gives good service. It still looks brand new; screen is bright and all pixels are good. I bought 2 docking stations for both sides of the Atlantic (eBay again...cheap) each having a DVDR which can accommodate many other devices as well, and now carry a WDPassport500gb external HDD for music and backup. I don't think it would run Windows7...who cares? ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
