Free or cheap computer for indigent artist

October 21, 2016 3:21 PM

Hi, my friend is a brilliant digital artist and wants to apply or ask to get a free or cheap computer - his present main box is manufactured in the last millenium! Are there agencies, websites or subreddits, etc where he could show some of his work and get parts or a complete computer ? Should be capable of running adobe cs5 if possible. He is in the UK.
posted by Mistress to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

If your friend is low income it is possible that there are organizations in your area that provide very inexpensive laptops to low income people. He may also want to look into libraries for places that have computers that may have graphic design software for him to use.
Or you may want to just keep an eye on Craigslist or whatever and buy him a used laptop.
posted by k8t at 3:35 PM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Did he go to university? I run a university art program, and we're in the process of replacing all our Macs. The old but still usable Macs are being sold at exceptionally low cost with CS6 software already on them to any interested students upon their own instigation; if a former student reached out and asked and I still had some available I'd totally do that as well.
posted by vegartanipla at 4:31 PM on October 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

The system requirements for CS5 include basically any PC manufactured in the past decade. I'd say keep an eye on Craigslist (or your local equivalent) to see if you can see someone who's unloading an old system (preferably one that runs Windows 7 at minimum) for free/cheap. It'll be light-years better equipped than anything being sold pre-2000.

You might find an old Mac for cheap, but I'd at least make sure that it's an Intel-based Mac, as that way you can at least install Windows on it once Apple stops supporting it, though you'd have to pay ~$100 for the Windows license if you go that route. Generally speaking, Macs that are still supported by Apple with system updates tend to retain their value a little better than PCs of similar vintage.
posted by Aleyn at 7:48 PM on October 21, 2016

In the UK you can usually pick up later model Thinkpad T60s or T60ps with 4 gb of RAM running Win 7 for £100 or less on eBay, which would be fine for this.
posted by Chairboy at 2:57 AM on October 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

He might ask on /r/Assistance, stating his location -- or /r/findareddit to be pointed to the sort of barter subs where this might fly. Given the costs of shipping I think I might look for local Facebook barter groups, too.
posted by kmennie at 7:07 AM on October 22, 2016

They should get a refurbed Thinkpad with an SSD and at least 8 GB of RAM on eBay. Best bang for buck for a used PC.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:41 AM on October 22, 2016

I don't know about how it works in the UK, but in the US you can often dumpster-dive at electronics recycling drop-offs. It's often not allowed, but if nobody's watching you can quite often snag working computers.

This may require some finagling, cable-swapping, harddrive swapping, and manual OS reimaging. And sometimes they just boot right up and work first time. It's hard to beat free, though...
posted by BungaDunga at 5:54 PM on October 23, 2016