Netbook or old laptop?

[Dustin2128]

I'm thinking of buying a ThinkPad T41 for myself on ebay for 90$. Do you think that's a decent price? It's got a 1400x1050 screen, radeon 9000 32Mb, 512Mb RAM upgradeable to 2GB, and a 40GB HDD, 1.6GHz Pentium M. I plan on maybe upgrading it to 1GB RAM if possible then using it for a web browsing and mobile development machine. Distro wise I'll probably be using debian or arch with xfce.

[kostageas]

Try your local thrift store. I found a laptop (don't remember the specs) that ran Windows XP and had Office '07 already installed. Unfortunately it didn't have a wireless card (cheap), nor did the CD drive work (no USB) so I couldn't really do anything with it, or so I thought at the time. This cost about $30.

[Dustin2128]

Thinking of buying a ThinkPad T41 on ebay for about 90$. I don't think it can get much better than that. Actually, I think I'm threadjacking myself into asking if it's a good deal now.

[slooksterpsv]

Thinking of buying a ThinkPad T41 on ebay for about 90$. I don't think it can get much better than that. Actually, I think I'm threadjacking myself into asking if it's a good deal now.

I'd say yes, heck I'd take it for $90. the P4 will be more powerful than an Intel Atom. I'm an AMD fan, but that's my 2c. I say get it =D.

[lucazade]

Thinking of buying a ThinkPad T41 on ebay for about 90$. I don't think it can get much better than that. Actually, I think I'm threadjacking myself into asking if it's a good deal now.

I have a T40 (768mb, radeon 7500 32mb, Pentium M 1.6gb) running natty with unity2D and everything works like a charm. Running Ubuntu on it from FeistyFawn without any major issue, only radeon drivers were no good but now are pretty good.
T41, I've used a little, was really close to it.
Don't ask this machine 3D (unity3d or gnomeshell) and video/youtube in 720p, too much for it, but for the rest is so great.

[Dustin2128]

Stupidly bid on it for 30$ already- had a buy it now option. Guess I'll just hope and wait for it to go up. I'm thinking the radeon 9000 driver has been totally reverse engineered, so a bit of compositing with xfce should be fine, maybe even ioquake3 engine games- though that may be pushing it. It's mostly just for my internet IV away from home anyway, so it should be suitable for my purposes. I do think I will buy it.

[pjd99]

I'd say yes, heck I'd take it for $90. the P4 will be more powerful than an Intel Atom. I'm an AMD fan, but that's my 2c. I say get it =D.

Nitpicking here, but the Pentium M is based more on the PIII arcitechture, with a few P4 features. It's even better than a P4 or P4M, especially in terms of power usage and heat dissipation.

Got a 1.6GHz Dothan in my old dell insp 8600, running 9.10 and XP. Struggles with 720p video in Ubuntu, but can play ~75% of them with MPC in XP...


@ OP, I reckon I'd take that for $90.

[Dustin2128]

Awesome, it won't run at 135C! :lolflag: