Lenovo ThinkPad T400

I ended up buying this R61i and T400 for $5 each. Both of them work perfectly, just missing the hard drives! They're even in nice cosmetic shape too, unlike just about every other laptop in the store. I probably should credit that legendary Thinkpad durability for keeping them in such good shape, I can't wait to get them refurbished and cleaned up!

Lenovo ThinkPad if you’re on a budget. They’re extremely durable. Worth buying used. I’d try to get one with 16gb of ram and an SSD.

Surprisingly well, my fully upgraded T400 turns 11 years old in August. It could probably handle about 80% of my daily computing tasks with no issue whatsoever.

My Lenovo Thinkpad from nearly a decade ago hasn't been working too well for me lately, sometimes struggling with video calls and buffering videos. Also, it's graphics card isn't good enough to run a few games I'd like to play (Civ 6, Ori & the Blind Forest, Journey). Not sure if that's specifically something I'll have to look for or if all modern computers will be up to the task. I'm in the US, looking for something <1K.

It only has a core 2 duo so you're basically gonna have to run linux if you want a decent experience, and also you might run into ram issues as the T61 only supports up to 8gb of ram. Honestly, if you're going for a classic thinkpad you can do work on, try to get a T400 (a T60p could also be an option because of that amazing screen, however ram wise it can only do 3.5gb so that's something to keep in mind).