I May have just bought a pic in a poke but I picked up an SVOA (Thai made) laptop with dual core, 1GB RAM, 120GB SATA HD, DVD RW, Wireless & Ethernet, Bluetooth, Three USB ports, built in Cam and a few other odds and ends. 18K. It will accept 2GB RAMand has no OS installed Things is light, it might break in a week, I have no idea. Seems pretty sturdy though good ventilation and fan. I installed WinXP it supposed to be compatible with Vista I don't really care. I am Installing Slackware on it as I write this.
I'll use it to work downstairs, or Just to get out of the house and work or work on the road. The processor is a T2330 not a speeding bullet but XP seems to perform on it well enough. Gotta figure Linux will do OK on it.

But if you're gonna spend 30K and you really can get a ThinkPad for that price Fuck the rest get the IBM. Not sure about support/repair infrastructure in Thailand, but they are reliable machines.