My nephew works for IBM and when I asked for a recommendation he suggested a IBM laptop and mentioned Lenova. In researching it, I found it was $1,200. and most people I talked to did not think to much of IBMs. I bought a Toshiba at half the price and love it. As a matter of fact he said he doesn't use the laptop as much as he used to, he uses a smart phone to stay in touch.

Lenovo is now IBM and they make an excellent product, we have one of the thinkpads with the docking station, I personally do not use it, it is my husbands work laptop and it has been an excellent computer, he loves the dock. I would recommend them as a good brand.

I would want to see pictures of the craigslist one and I can not imagine why anyone would place an ad with out a picture on it. But from what it says it sounds ok he does not give a lot of info.

I thought you wanted only xp? the one at lenovo had vista selected, I know that lenovo does offer them with xp too so you may have to search around their site.

the hype is true the prices always drop significantly at back to school time it is real and it is a good time to shop.

It may be what you meant by Lenovo is now IBM, but Lenovo is a publicly traded company that bought IBM's PC division including the Thinkpad line.

I used Thinkpads for a number of years while IBM was making them and had good luck with them. I know others who have owned them since Lenovo started making them and they say the quality hasn't dropped.

I think you will find the Lenovo has a steel base where all other laptops have a plastic base. Not significant - unless you drop your laptop, then it becomes a real advantage.

I owned an IBM Thinkpad in about 1999-2002, it worked fine, no problems. I liked it because it was small and light, all peripherals were outboard, not the best, but sure made the machine a pleasure to carry in the briefcase. It saw a lot of travel, and never failed.

Okay - so the Lenovo gets respect here - but not unilateral. There's still a plug for Toshiba.

Raven - you're right - I do want XP. The one I linked to included a downgrade to XP option. At the time I was looking earlier, that's the only option I saw for XP. Since reading your post, I've noticed Lenovo's with preinstalled XP at Newegg and Tigerdirect, I think. Or maybe it was also at Best Buy. I don't want to get involvd in having preinstalled Vista - and then switching it myself to XP. If that were within my capabilities, I would have switched my husband's operating system from Vista to XP. But from what I read here and elsewhere, it's a huge undertaking - that might leave some problems in the end.

Thanks for telling me that this really is a good time to buy. I'll be researching over the next week. In the end, I think prices are low enough - and my inexperience high enough, that I'm better off buying new and not dealing with potential ripoffs and how many new things I would need to do to check out a used laptop thoroughly. I probably could do it if I had to (based on your detailed instructions on the other thread) - but I could imagine that taking a long, long time. And if the first laptop isn't good, it could be quite a time killer to search for several.

I did note that Lenovo's come in a huge range of prices and options - from many $600 units - up to the seeming popular T61P thinkpad for about $1700.

Lynn in case you have not seen it I have linked to the Sunday Saver below to save you searching around for various stores. This is the NY edition, you need to move over to your area perhaps.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunday Saver

Thanks Owbist. It is remarkable how much help and knowledge is on these forums.

another really good one like that is shoplocal
ShopLocal just like the other one you set it up for your local area by using your zip code or city state.

Bpgreen sorry yes that is indeed what I meant that lenovo now is the name associated with the IBM laptops and PCs line.

Lynn I don't know where you live but most cities have some pretty decent local shops that will build a laptop or pc for you configured how you want it, that is a good way to still get xp. I know by me there is a great little shop that does work on my pc when I don't want to do it myself and he builds and sells them for very good prices. You may want to check your local listings, and in my experience they are very good at supporting their products.

Just as an example here is the site for one in my area of the world, you could look for something similar near you.
ATS Computers

Thanks Raven. I live in Washington, DC so that should certainly be a big enough metropolis for some good shops. I can ask around. Offhand, the couple of places I know of have a pretty bad reputation. But I do know some good, reputable computer repair technicians and they might be able to tell me it there are good shops.

From the little bit of looking I've done, there are good, preconfigured XP laptops - that have almost everything I'd want except a line-in jack. It's also possible I can find an adapter and record my albums through the USB port. Something I'll have to post about later when I get home tonight.