I just nabbed a Dell Inspiron 8200 from a neighbor for a quarter (and some other assorted gadgets like an Apple Wireless Keyboard A1016, an SGH-I717 Galaxy Note 8.0 AT&T LTE tablet, and what appears to be a green 16x2 text LCD of the sort I can easily interface with a Teensy++ or Pi Zero). Looks like it hasn't been used too hard, as the keycaps, mouse button and trackpad still have their texture. XP boots right up.
Mobile P4 1.7 GHz, 512 MB DDR (most likely a pair of 256 MB SO-DIMMs without visually inspecting), Mobility Radeon 9000, 40 GB HDD, Belkin 802.11g PCMCIA/CardBus Wi-Fi adapter of some sort, 1400x1050 TN LCD, single battery and a space saver in the other bay.
I'm not entirely sure what to do with it at the moment. It never officially got drivers for anything past XP (especially problematic when it comes to GPU drivers), and it strikes me as weak sauce by modern standards, but reviews show that in its heyday, it was billed as a powerful desktop replacement sort of laptop... albeit at a time when no self-respecting PC gamer would ever consider a laptop just for the lack of GPU options alone, never mind how sound cards also still mattered back then.
But hey, it's not often that I just stumble across laptops that were powerful for their time, instead of being commodity consumer crap. This one might be worth putting through its paces.