I used an old laptop for my first lab. It weigh 4kg, however it's surprisingly fast enough to run my low test workloads after minor upgrades
Speaking about Veeam, at home I use a 180-day NFR license to open the full functionality (http://go.veeam.com/free-nfr-backup-management-suite.html) - it's not for production, it's only for learning purposes. I also recommend to take a look at free video trainings from Veeam University that in your case might also be helpful - http://www.veeam.com/backup-replication-university.html