Finished configuring both my HP Compaq 8510w (sort of retro, ish) and modern HP EliteBook 8570p.
Pictures of both machines http://imgur.com/a/n03an
Picked up these two machines... sold my 8470p for a 8570p and just swapped out the drives. Wanted 1080p screen but still a well built laptop with good keyboard, touchpad, and plenty of ports.
Let’s start with the HP Compaq 8510w. This machine is from 2008, picked it up for less than $60 shipped as a complete system via eBay! Added in more RAM and awaiting an SSD for it. T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, 320GB 7200RPM HD, 15.4" 1920x1200 (!!!) screen, NVIDIA Quadro FX570M 256MB. VGA, power, Kensington lock, ethernet, Firewire 400, HDMI, 2xUSB 2.0, SD card reader, PCMCIA slot, SmartCard reader, Audio in/out jacks, 2xUSB 2.0, DVD/RW drive, modem jack. Decent keyboard and touchpad... fingerprint reader is a nice bonus. You can still use XP very well in 2017 provided you do an unofficial hack to get updates and stay protected. Honestly, if you surf smartly you’ll be fine. Also Vista+newer don’t support the Yamaha softsynth I use for MIDI.
And the 8570p, a bit scratched and banged up but for under $300 total you can’t go wrong... especially considering the hardware. i7 3740QM quad core, 8GB RAM, 256GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD + 320GB 7200RPM HD in 2nd bay (replaced DVD drive with SATA caddy), 15.6" 1920x1080, AMD RADEON HD7570M 1GB. modem jack, serial port ??? in a 2013 laptop? displayport, 2x USB 2.0, Firewire 400, eSATA/USB 2.0 combo, VGA, expresscard, SD card reader, smartcard reader, Audio in/out jacks, 2x USB 3.0, 2nd bay HD caddy with 320GB 7200RPM HD in it, ethernet, Kensington lock. Decent keyboard but the arrow buttons are too small. Touchpad is glass and glorious.
HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
