if you dont need it to be transported then i wouldnt bother with a laptop, just build a low spec desktop, youd be suprised how cheap they are now and would be more then powerful enough to do what you stated.

i just whacked an example part list together for you, cheap as chips


AMD Sempron 2500+ (SoA) (1.750ghz) CPU Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty £39.25 £46.12

Gigabyte GA-7VM400M-RZ, VIA KM400, uATX, DDR333, 10/100 Lan, USB 2.0, Audio, IDE, VGA £27.96 £32.86

512 Mb Corsair Value Select, DDR, PC2100, non ECC, Lifetime Warranty £27.00 £31.73

Scan 3XS '2012' 4 in1 Kit. Black/Silver inc Keyb/Mouse/Speakers ATX Midi Tower 400W Passive PFC PSU £24.25 £28.49

80Gb Seagate Barracuda ATA-100 (7200rpm,2MB,9ms) - PATA £31.57 £37.09

128MB Gigabyte N40128TE-Geforce4MX4000, 275/400MHz, AGP8x, 2xPipeline, DirectX8.1, TVOut £23.00 £27.03

Net Total £173.03

Carriage £15.00

V.A.T. £32.91

TOTAL £220.94

prices will be similiar from most retailers.


220 quid including delivery, id say that works out cheaper then most laptops youl come across :)