Slow and old PCs

Did another laptop last night, but it's a bit slow, purely because it's quite old and underspecced. Not sure whether to just give it back (with a slowness caveat) or have a go with one of the "lighter" versions of Ubuntu, that take up fewer resources. As usual, it's a balance between my time, and keeping the customer happy, and support overheads. Mind you, I'm not doing much today so may as well have a go, even if it's just to see what Xubuntu (light version) looks and runs like.