I am looking at a Thinkpad E520 and E430 and it's now between the two.... both are at a good price!

The Thinkpad E520 has an i5-M540 with 4GB of Ram and 500GB 7200 HDD (I have this setup in my Toughbook CF-C2.... slower than molasses)

The Thinkpad E430 has an i3-2350M with 2 GB of Ram and 320GB HDD (maybe 7200?)

need to decide SOON and WOULD like to get your opinions soon..... For the RAM you would REALLY want to get 4gb which would put you towards the E520. The i5 M540 certainly shouldn't be slow for general use. Adding an SSD later on could also be a decent idea since I doubt your father needs lots of storage, this would make the machine a whole lot snappier.

I'd also be inclined to recommend looking at the ThinkPad T series such as the T510 and T520 (equivalent spec of the E520 and E430 respectively). The E series are good but aren't as well made as the T series. I wouldn't pay a fortune more but if you can get one around the same price I'd go for that.ok so a T410 with an Intel CORE i5 M520 4GB ram and 320GB hard driveI just bought a T410 with an Intel Core i5 M520 4GB ram and 320GB hard drive for $110 shipped.... thanks for all the information!Nice, looks good, it's a great machine!