Need ideas for cheap laptop
 

I have an Aunt, who's in a wheelchair, in need of a $300 - $400 laptop so she can work from her bed on days she's bedriden. She's on a very tight budget. She works for the Washington State Government setting up a program helping others with handicaps getting all of their health care in order. You can imagine, doesn't pay very well.

Her only requirements really is to be able to run MS Office and access her broadband email account. My only real requirement is that it's a stable platform (I'm the in-family tech support :lol: )

Speed is not really a factor, 400mhz is probably a reasonable minimum. 128 megs ram min, but 256 megs Ram is probably more reasonable min.

Anyway, anyone have a line on a good laptop for a good cause? Or a reliable source for used laptops? (I am very weary about buying sight-unseen on the internet).

Thanks for the help!

Jason

these guys deal in used computers:

http://www.retrobox.com

give it a shot. otherwise, check at live auctions.

I say go look at the auctions

You'd be surpised what you can run on old hardware. My 300mhz/32mb Toshiba laptop is fine for Mozilla/Abiword (I'm running linux on it for that extra bit of grunt). If she wants to save money on software (and doesn't have MS Office already) tell her to grab a copy of Open Office.