Thinkpad for my dad and Price Check

Hello everyone I'm trying to find out what would be a good laptop for my dad. He's mostly going to use it for the surfing the web, skype ,checking emails and maybe watching videos from time to time. Budget is around US$600.

I've been looking online quite a bit and I kinda narrowed the search to Lenovo. And T series from the outlet seems to be the most logical choice in terms of price and reliability, I tend to get something new for him every 3-4 years or so. With his needs, most of the machines out there can handle it no problem.

My main concern is reliability, given that he lives overseas and his limited ability on fixing the machine. I need something that will keep that problem at a very minimum. Fan problem seems to be the only thing that I found so far with this particular machine, any other known or common problems that I need to be aware of?

Here is the T420 spec I am eyeing on. It is currently available for $550 at the outlet.

i7-2640M
Win7
14"HD 1600x900 LED Backlight
Intel HD3000
4G Memory
500G Serial HDD

Good buy at its current price? Any other laptop suggestion within the price range will be greatly appreciated. HP or Dell?

Thanks again and please be gentle with this being my first post!

 

600 is a pretty good price for a HD+ T420. Just remember on outlet/refurb ThinkPads, you cannot extend the base 1 year warranty, you must buy post-warranty upgrade, which cost a fair bit more. I don't think the T420 has any major issues..