I'm new to the ThinkPad fold as of a few years ago and need some advice in selecting an older ThinkPad for my nephew. He's in high school and has aspirations of becoming a sports writer. He already has an Asus netbook for school, but I'd like to get him a ThinkPad for home because of its superior keyboard, TrackPoint, and reliability. Since he has a netbook, weight and portability shouldn't be issues (in fact a 15" screen would probably be appreciated). He's not into games so doesn't need speedy graphics or a lot of horsepower (enough to run Word 2003, browse the Web for sports stats, and write his blog). My budget is up to $200 for a very good to excellent condition ThinkPad (I could go a bit higher if need be). Thanks much for your recommendations. Based on your suggestions I'll be placing a WTB post in the Marketplace.

For that type of budget I would suggest a 15" R52 with Intel graphics.
Combined with Windows XP, 2GB RAM and a hard disk up to 320GB, this would be more than adequate.
As it happens, I have such a machine for sale.
PM me if interested.

My recommendation would be either a 15" R60 or T60 or a 15.4" Z61m, T60, R61 or T61. All are great machines and can be found in the $200 range.

My nod would go to a WSXGA+ 15.4" R61 or T61 - they're one generation newer, support more than 3GB of RAM and have internal SD card readers. I would actually take a webcam equipped R61 over the T61. (Avoid any NVidia GPU models.) Good luck with the search.

I would buy him a mouse, cherry keyboard and large display and you will spend around 150 USD and have a much superior system. I can't do any serious work with any notebook displays, they are just too small. But most people do. At least think of it

Thanks to everyone for the advice. A nice T43p came up before I started looking for an R60 and I decided to go for it. We'll see what the nephew thinks in a couple of weeks.

A friend suggested the same to me instead of a high quality notebook but would screens in such a price range be any good. Why cherry keyboards?

What kind of word do you do that 15" displays are too small for you? I think that they are completely acceptable for writing.

Lots of people are fond of one brand keyboard over other ones.
I swear by Logitech, others want MS or an old 'clicky' IBM keyboard, or Cherry as in the above post, or whatever other brand.
The T4x/R5x keyboards are renowned, so there would be no need for an external keyboard under normal circumstances.

Compared to my 20 Euro cherry keyboard, any thinkpad keyboard I used before was not good enough.

Just go to any store and lookup the displays up to 200 USD, they are much better than any old 15 inch IPS display from IBM. You might even get a good IPS/VA panel for this kind of money.

And from my experience, having one system is better than synchronizing two.