My 6 PIII-era project laptops arrived today. Trying to carry their 25-30kg box back to my flat was a bad idea... They cost £16, plus £8 P&P (all devoid of hard drives and chargers).
First is this Compaq Armada M700. I think it's the only laptop of the six with a metal top cover, and it is also the oldest, with its Windows 98 CoA. It's in good shape, apart from some polystyrene (I think) has fallen into one of the fans, and the screws look battered - I think one of the lock latches may be missing as well, but I'm not sure. It also needs a new keyboard, as the membrane is damaged near the missing key. Seems to power on fine, but didn't really want to let me into the BIOS setup. The backlight started out being a little uneven, but slowly sorted itself out. It also bizarrely appears to have two power buttons - one on the left, and a switch on the right!
Next are a pair of Dell Inspiron laptops, an 8000, and an 8100. The 8000 (first pictured) was in good shape bar the missing PCMCIA slot covers and a horrible feeling trackpoint, but unfortunately the 8100 needs a new screen cable (graphics output was a bit fuzzy on the TFT, but looked fine on an external monitor) I believe, and is also a PCMCIA slot cover short. These laptops both shipped new with Windows Mistake Edition, and both let me into the BIOS setup just fine - I'm struggling to tell the two apart based on anything other than the model number, as both have the same 1GHZ PIII CPU, 256 MB of RAM, and the same graphics chip. Both have hinges that are a little loose, but still sturdy. The 8000 was originally shipped on 6/6/2001, if I remember correctly from looking up its service tag.
Hot on the heels of the Inspirons was this Latitude C600. It's a little rougher cosmetically (the Dell logo on the top is a mess, some of the plastic casing is loose, one PCMCIA slot cover is missing), the trackpoint top is missing, and the laptop is in need of an optical drive faceplate (or probably a new drive, since it flew out of its mounting at me when I picked it up!). It has some odd behaviour caused by its dead battery (when the charger is connected, it flashes orange, orange, then green, and cycles that) but otherwise appears to be in fully working order. It also has a 1 GHz Pentium III CPU, it shipped new with Windows 2000 Professional, and has very little play in its hinges.
The penultimate laptop is my favourite - a Sony Vaio PCG-FX601. This has a 1.1 GHz AMD Duron CPU, and is in fantastic shape, with really tight hinges, very few scratches/scuffs and all of its panel covers - the only obvious issue is that I can't figure out how to properly reattach the power button faceplate! However, the best bit about the laptop is that the battery is clearly charging, and able to hold at least some of a charge; no idea how much, but it's pretty incredible that it is able to run off its battery with no issues. It shipped new with Windows XP Home, and I couldn't seem to get it to go into its BIOS setup screen.
Finally is this Toshiba Satellite 1800-712. It featured a 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, and shows signs of its battery taking a charge - not sure if it is taking much of one, or how well it will last yet. It's in almost as good a condition as the Vaio is cosmetically, although it isn't as clean and smells a little odd (not faulty electrics odd!). It didn't seem to want to go into BIOS setup, although I did get it to go there once - I do know, however, that it has a good optical drive (on at least the CD lens), as there was a disc left in it that it attempted to check for any potential to boot from. Like the Vaio, it shipped new with XP Home.
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