Hi, I just purchased a X41T laptop off ebay with extended battery, unfortunately when it arrived there was a small but deep scratch in the screen near the center , i really don't want to have to return this for a refund so I'm hoping to just get maybe 20-30 dollars refunded so I can get a good screen protector or overlay to hopefully resolve the issue since the pen tip gets "stuck" on it when I run it over that area. Are there any cheap fixes to this? I noticed the outer screen is a thick piece of "plastic?" that sits on top of the actual LCD underneath, would I be able to disassemble the screen casing and flip the plastic over so the scratch will be on the bottom where I won't hit it with the pen? Are there replacements for this plastic? Would a good stiff overlay fix the issue? Where's the best place to get one?
Thanks.

Just return the machine.

You won't be able to remove the front of the screen without damage.

At today's prices of vanilla X60 tablets, a X41T is a waste of time and resources unless you find a really spectacular one which the unit in your possession is obviously not.

Good luck.

If you get e.g. an X60 Tablet, it takes regular 2.5" SATA hard disks, not the crippled, slow, expensive, rare, 1.8" PATA disks as in the X41/X41t.

The writing surface is a panel of chemically hardened glass. It is taped to the bezel of the LCD panel via some kind of industrial adhesive/double-sided tape.
It is certainly possible to remove the glass panel, but 1. it will be quite difficult, 2. you risk damaging the actual LCD, and 3. the two sides might have different treatments so that the panel is not reversible. If you want to keep the X41 tablet, your best bet would be obtaining a new LCD panel, which includes this protective glass.

Glass eh? Are you sure about that? there's a video of a guy replacing the screen on a x61 tablet and he had to remove the outer protective panel and he says it's plexiglass hmm, I've replaced several LCD screens for clients laptops in the past, but yes, this one seems a bit more tedious, everything else about the laptop is great, I think I fixed the cursor lag with the latest drivers from wacom, the speed is decent, it's a 1.66ghz cetrino, 1.5gb of ram, it has a huge battery that holds a very good charge. I have a extra x40 screen with a going out CFL bulb to replace if needed and another 40gb 1.8 drive if mine goes bad, I'm really only going to be using this to try to get my artistic muse back.
I already have a nice netbook I have to run around with. just something to overlay on the 1/4inch scratch would make me happy, I paid $136 total for it on ebay, and I lost the previous 3 auctions for the same model, these tablets are in way more higher demand than you realize I'm gonna try to see if I can get $36 refunded to me so me and the seller doesn't have to go thro anymore trouble and I think I'll be happy, I should be able to get another entire screen with cables and swivel base for about that much. Hopefully this isn't too irrational of a decision I'm in a extremely tight budget and barely allowed myself to pay this much, all the "good" x60 tablets with "whole" styluses go for $200+ on ebay, it's just out of my price range .
The only thing I want to figure out now besides the screen is how to keep the CPU speed at 1.66ghz even when unplugged, at max performance when it's running on battery power it downclocks to 556mhz, I want the most zip when I'm doodling around with OpenCanvas or Gimp. I guess my biggest question is what's the cheapest most robust screen protector I can get for this so I can run the pen over it without catching on the scratch, I had some thin clear polystyrene that works, but it's got a terrible glare and already has many small scratches in it.

Ouch. You could have bought my X41 tablet...
Well, I heard they are glass. Never actually taken the panel off, though. However the video you mentioned sounds a bit fishy. There's no need to remove the protective glass just to change the LCD panel; in fact, the protective glass is part of the LCD panel. Check out the Hardware Maintenance Manuals, and you'll see that there's no additional protective layer on top of the LCD.

Ah well, guess I should have asked here first for a x41t , here's the video in question http://vimeo.com/3933798 , I'm pretty sure physically the protective screen and LCD are actually two pieces, they are sealed together with sticky foam, in fact if I look at my screen very closely I can even see a few smidgens of dust particles in between the protective glass/plexiglass and the actual TFT LCD underneath. Maybe when Lenovo was selling replacement screens they came with the protective layer already sealed on, This guy didn't have that luck with the LCD he got. Do you have any recomendations on a screen protector that would suit my needs?

I don't use a screen protector myself, but there are links to reviews to various screen protectors and a "shootout" in this post. A good screen protector will set you back ~ $20 or $30, though.

The X41t has a plastic-type of cover over it.
I took one of those apart, that had a cracked LCD, but the plastic(?) cover had not broken.
When I took it apart, just a tiny ((RH bottom) corner of that cover broke off, small enough that it would be hidden under the LCD bezel, you wouldn't see that it's missing.
It has some minimal scuffing on it, but no scratches or gashes. The scuffing can be polished away with e.g. copper polish or even toothpaste.
I could ship it out to you for $15.-, together with a spare digitizer panel from the same screen.
PM me if interested.

Used one from this company (http://www.strongengineering.com/tabletpcs.aspx) before, but had since removed it.

The light and clarity loss, as far as I could tell, was little, probably insignificant.

The one I had used adhesive tapes on the edges to fix itself on the screen so there's a little bulge at the edges. Not sure if they're still selling that type though.

You may find a link to its review on GBM from twistero's link. The verdict wasn't good apparently because the reviewer was using a glossy screen, but my experience was good with both the X41T and X61T, which have a matte screen.

Cheers.