It's very difficult to find good laptops with 4:3 or even 16:10 screens these days. Heck, it's very difficult to find good monitors with aspect ratios other than 16:9!

I got my hopes up with the small splurge of 3:2 devices we got the other year, but that seems to have sputtered out.

How about a laptop with 9:16 instead!

I lusted over A4 displays in the 90s

I can understand your preference for the X201 (r/thinkpad is full of folks like you and my first Thinkpad was a X20 or so) but the screen resolution would kill me. It's 2017 and text, bash, vim or I mean just anything on a 120dpi or less screen is just a terrible idea.

At a normal viewing distance I cannot see individual pixels, its only a 12" panel and at 1280x800 is quite serviceable (I wouldn't mind a 1440x900 panel though)

It might just be my poor eyesight, but the resolution has never bothered me.

Really? Maybe I should get an old model as well, the build quality then was unmatched.

X201's are plentiful but most eBay auctions are missing the drive caddy, caddy cover, AC adapter or all of the above.

In that state you can get an i5 2.53ghz for ~$50 and the missing parts for maybe $25.

Newegg also has refurbs but I received one with a black textured sticker cut to fit the entire lid to hide damage. :/

It's a project but these things are beaters, at one point I wanted a "burner" chromebook and spent $100. :P

I usually don't mind getting a semi-beatup one as I can get the replacement plastics from China inexpensively, and its very easy to strip this model down and replace its parts.

Its not like they are expensive, my X201 cost £90.