[AviD]

This will be a very basic laptop for storing (temporarily) pictures in the field (i.e. will be carted around in my truck ala mobile fashion and offloaded onto a main PC eventually).

It also will need some basic internet capabilities, i.e. ethernet/modem. It will also need a CDRW drive to copy pictures to a CD.

Beyond that I just need the bare essentials which I believe will be included in most all laptops: {external monitor hookup, external keyboard hookup, external mouse hookup, USB ports, etc}. Maybe a 20GBish HD would be good for my needs.

What do you recommend? Any brands to stick with or avoid? I see a TON of laptops available on eBay and various other sites for sale (used and refurbished) but having trouble in narrowing down.

Price range is probably about $500 max for the purpose of this laptop.