I dont know Hoyle about your experience, but if I check the local Ebay site, one thing I can always be sure of, is I will find a SOHO HP notebooks for parts, followed by different types of notebooks with MR9700 installed.
I have yet to see HP NC/NX or IBM R or T lappy for parts. Might be due to extended warranty, but no all IBM R laptops were sold that way and I know some NC lappies were sold with 1 year warranty in EU as well as all NX laptops.
Also when I did some research on the forums, a while back, on what is the lappy to buy (I was looikng for one for myself and some friends and family were asking me what to get), HP SOHO line was right down there with your typical no name stuff and Gericom, when reliability was in question and IBM, Dell and HP buisness class was considered top notch, but not bulletproof, mainly because of the completely unreliable IBM, now Hitachi disks. Acer was considered by far the best bang for the buck with very high reliability sticker. One of the biggest complaints about Acer was it usually looks like it went through sandstorm in 2 years time, I guess small price to pay for what is otherwise great package.
Oh and when portability is of main concern HP NC class cant be beat, actually NC6000 I have, is still considered one of the best all rounders in that department, followed closely by IBM T42 model.
Oh and BTW I had cheap Compaq (now HP) lappy, 2xxx series and I know how bad the build was compared to what I have now or your typical IBM, Dell and Acer laptop.