Starting in the same price range as the underpowered, defeatured, diminuitive netbooks, Lenovo’s ThinkPad SL400 & SL500 notebooks can be had for a starting price of only $399.

Of course you don’t get much for $399. A dual core Celeron processor. 1GB RAM with Windows Vista. Ugh. But you do get a 160GB HDD, DVD burner, and the screen on the SL400 is LED backlit.

Upgrading to a Core 2 Duo T6570 only costs $50 and is probably your best investment in options. Moving to a single 2GB stick of RAM runs $50, but for that much you can get your own single stick and be at 3GB total. Not too bad for less than $500 out of pocket!

SL400 base config

• Celeron Dual-core T1600 1.66GHz; 14.1″ LED WXGA; 160GB HDD
• 1GB DDR2; optional WebCam & fingerprint Reader
• DVD Burner; 802.11b/g Wi-Fi; 6-cell battery

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SL500 base config

• Celeron T1600 1.66GHz CPU; 1GB DDR2; 15.4″ Anti-glare WXGA
• 160GB Hard Drive; UltraNav; 6-cell battery; GMA 4500MHD
• 1yr warranty; 802.11b/g WiFi; Vista Home Basic SP1

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