You can get a decent spec Toshiba from Currys for less than £500.
It will probably come with Vista though, so you'll need a copy of XP to stick over the top.
aye was checking curry's theve got sum good laptops....esp those refurbished ones...
found a dell notebook, 2.10 ghz duel core, 3gb ram, 100gb hd with windows xp for £500 so went with that - one of those 14 inch laptops so pretty pleased with tht