What older computer should I buy?
October 19, 2013 11:56 AM
Hi, I want to get a refurb PC running Windows 7 (for occasional use), get one of the beefy, business-use laptops that cost crazy money about 3-4 years ago. Now I see these machines for $200-$300. I near good things about the Lenovo t400 & t61, but I'm open, also wonder if people can suggest places like Newegg, etc., that are good or to be avoided. Thanks!
Newegg is completely trustworthy and an excellent vendor. Buying an off-lease business laptop is a good move. Great price/performance/reliability ratio going that route. I haven't purchased any Lenovos, but if you buy from Dell directly (DFS Direct, Dell Auction, eBay or Dell Outlet) you get a 90 day warranty, working battery, cosmetically clean laptop, good keyboard etc.
Dell Auction and DFS Direct in particular seem to have very good deals. Replace the laptop's hard drive with an SSD, and the machine will be ultra fast.
posted by cnc at 1:27 PM on October 19, 2013
Dell Auction and DFS Direct in particular seem to have very good deals. Replace the laptop's hard drive with an SSD, and the machine will be ultra fast.
posted by cnc at 1:27 PM on October 19, 2013
i bought my mom a lenovo t410 for $300 from a guy on craigslist who also had a big ebay store and refurbishes TONS of thinkpads. Core I5, 8gb of ram, 7200rpm hdd. It was one of the "up spec" models when it was newer and came with the dock and lots of goodies like extra power supplies. You literally could not tell it had ever been used. I was really impressed all around with the machine/price/everything.
That said, i wouldn't go that route again with buying from a private seller when lenovo outlet is so cheap. Yea, the thinkpads are pricy. But look at the u310s and stuff... sometimes $300 gets you one with an SSD and a hard drive, and a modern-er 3rd gen core i5 with good graphics. Newegg costs significantly more than lenovo outlet, so does dell outlet or any of the other outlet sites. I just have no idea how they do it for so cheap. Worth noting all the really cheap ones are "scratch and dent" models, but hey, they accept returns, have a warranty, and its probably something super tiny.
I wouldn't buy a t400 or a t61, anyone charging you that much for one now is fleecing you. core2duo stuff is getting really dated and people really only pay $$$ for machines with those CPUs if they're macs.
posted by emptythought at 2:16 PM on October 19, 2013
That said, i wouldn't go that route again with buying from a private seller when lenovo outlet is so cheap. Yea, the thinkpads are pricy. But look at the u310s and stuff... sometimes $300 gets you one with an SSD and a hard drive, and a modern-er 3rd gen core i5 with good graphics. Newegg costs significantly more than lenovo outlet, so does dell outlet or any of the other outlet sites. I just have no idea how they do it for so cheap. Worth noting all the really cheap ones are "scratch and dent" models, but hey, they accept returns, have a warranty, and its probably something super tiny.
I wouldn't buy a t400 or a t61, anyone charging you that much for one now is fleecing you. core2duo stuff is getting really dated and people really only pay $$$ for machines with those CPUs if they're macs.
posted by emptythought at 2:16 PM on October 19, 2013
Also note that a 3-4 yr old business laptop may have been absolutely hammered in terms of use. I know mine was when I exchanged it after 3 yrs last week. So pick very carefully, if you go that route.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:09 PM on October 19, 2013
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:09 PM on October 19, 2013
Just to add to the choir, a 4 year old desktop - sure, why not. A 4 year old laptop - heck no. They get banged around, the battery is gone, the fan might be ready for replacement and it'll be slow. I have bought heaps of Dell outlet machines and have been very happy with them. But recently I stumbled across the lenovo outlet and I have to agree, there are some interesting prices there.
posted by nostrada at 6:07 PM on October 19, 2013
posted by nostrada at 6:07 PM on October 19, 2013
I used to have a T61. They were very, very nice machines when new. (I'd go so far as to say that they were very close to the best that IBM/Lenovo made. Certainly better than current production, where they've ruined the keyboard.) Very rugged as well, for a non-ruggedized / Toughbook laptop. $400 does seem steep, admittedly though.
One of the cool things about that model is that you can easily replace the keyboard, no tools required I believe, and new OEM ones are available on eBay for under $50. So if you found a bargain that's missing a keycap or two, it's not necessarily a deal-breaker. (But it'd have to be a real bargain, like sub-$100, IMO.)
Mine ran XP rather than Win7 so I can't personally speak to the performance if you want to put 7 on there. I'd definitely max out the RAM, although beware that i think you can only go to 4GB which is low by modern standards when using Win7. Don't expect to be firing up a bunch of VMWare images on there or anything. I'd also buy a new battery, just right at the outset; starting off your relationship with a new laptop with its battery already halfway (or more) dead isn't fun.
You could also think about an SSD. That might help the performance as well, since even if you hit swap it won't be quite as painful as a regular HDD and I have mixed feelings about trusting old laptop hard drives in general. Still not going to make it a speed demon on any tasks that are CPU/GPU-bound (games especially) but it all depends on what you want to do with it.
The only way I'd pay $400 for one would be if it were basically brand-new condition (no wear to wristpads, totally virgin keyboard, no dead pix on display, etc.), maxed RAM, preinstalled SSD, new recent-manufacture (not New Old Stock) battery, and it came with some goodies like a docking station or a boatload of power supplies. That would be a fair deal. For the machine itself? No.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:01 AM on October 20, 2013
One of the cool things about that model is that you can easily replace the keyboard, no tools required I believe, and new OEM ones are available on eBay for under $50. So if you found a bargain that's missing a keycap or two, it's not necessarily a deal-breaker. (But it'd have to be a real bargain, like sub-$100, IMO.)
Mine ran XP rather than Win7 so I can't personally speak to the performance if you want to put 7 on there. I'd definitely max out the RAM, although beware that i think you can only go to 4GB which is low by modern standards when using Win7. Don't expect to be firing up a bunch of VMWare images on there or anything. I'd also buy a new battery, just right at the outset; starting off your relationship with a new laptop with its battery already halfway (or more) dead isn't fun.
You could also think about an SSD. That might help the performance as well, since even if you hit swap it won't be quite as painful as a regular HDD and I have mixed feelings about trusting old laptop hard drives in general. Still not going to make it a speed demon on any tasks that are CPU/GPU-bound (games especially) but it all depends on what you want to do with it.
The only way I'd pay $400 for one would be if it were basically brand-new condition (no wear to wristpads, totally virgin keyboard, no dead pix on display, etc.), maxed RAM, preinstalled SSD, new recent-manufacture (not New Old Stock) battery, and it came with some goodies like a docking station or a boatload of power supplies. That would be a fair deal. For the machine itself? No.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:01 AM on October 20, 2013
Anything that ran Windows XP well will run Windows 7 equally well. The main reason you'd want more performance is because applications get uniformly bigger and slower every year.
posted by flabdablet at 8:45 AM on October 20, 2013
posted by flabdablet at 8:45 AM on October 20, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Candleman at 12:17 PM on October 19, 2013