If you need a good, sturdy notebook for your own use and are on a fairly tight budget, take a serious look at the Compaq Presario 1900.
I'm certainly not used to this - saying good things about Compaq notebooks. There used to be a time when I would do it all the time - that was when they had the sturdy and reliable Contura.
Then, somewhere in the late 1990s, Compaq started losing its edge and market share producing machines such as the LTE series and the early Armadas.
Compaq does not like to be reminded of those days but I would never let them live it down. The story changed however when they bought Digital Equipment in 1998. Digital was ahead of everyone, and I mean everyone, in the miniaturisation of notebooks.
Six years ago they introduced the Digital HiNote. which was just 2.54 centimetres deep. It was a really big deal at that time because the average 'slim' notebook looked suspiciously like aircraft carriers retired from the US Army.
Compaq's ambitious merger with the tech giant proved difficult and the two companies integrated slowly.