This discussion is one of the best reasons why I still buy refurbished laptops over on eBay. One of the best deals now is the Dell D630s with dual-core processors, and go for less-than-$250 (usually with free shipping) and still sell with Win XP Professional which will be supported by MS up until 2014.
URL:
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&...630+laptop&_sacat=See-All-CategoriesFor slightly more, you can get 4MB ram and up to 320GB HD:
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=dell+d630+4gb+xpIn my lifetime I've bought about 25 refurbished/used Dell laptops (at least 4 D610-D630 line models; a lot were the older venerable C840s which offered 2 HD bays and a 15 inch screen, with that series going from the 320MB to 2.2GB single core processor) without issues. No warranties are needed- when they finally break, I throw them away and get a new one.
Most are simply put aside when they simply get too old; the only one that really broke occurred when I took it to Italy and the cobblestone roads seemed too much for the laptop motherboard... The weirdest buy was a CIA laptop that came with an on-motherboard password protection that I had to break into, which was a hassle (it was real cheap- cost me $85).
When I finally break out of Windows XP in 2014/2015 MS will most likely have Windows 9 or whatever...
