[Steltek]

I'm a bigger fan of Dell desktop that companies have put out to pasture after a refresh cycle. They're very expandable, have plenty of horsepower, and the idle power draw isn't that bad. The better thermal characteristics compared to a laptop usually lead to very long life as well.

Related to a sibling comment, a decent UPS could power a Dell like that for a couple of hours if it's mostly idling.

[pcdoodle]

That and latitude laptops.

Optipliex desktop is around 10-15W idle

Laptops with screen off can hit around 5W (close to pi under load).

I would assume what loads the pi would almost be idle in these older dell machines.

[thomasjb]

Yes, I've got a Dell T3610 under the desk here now. My only beef is that it has weird Dell proprietary hardware, so I can't easily fit quieter fans to the PSU, or reuse the case with an ATX mobo