Refurbished Laptops

[kestra]

Hi guys,
I'm considering buying a refurbished laptop for my business, and would like to know people's thoughts, experiences with them.
Anything in particular I should be aware of, or be concerned with before I buy?

cheers.

[Pae]

I've found it to be hit or miss. If you buy a refurbished and can still return it in 14 days test it out and see what you get.

[Rosuav]

If you were in Australia, I'd point you to www.richbg.com - buy a laptop from my boss, that way you can guarantee efficient tech support Things to look for when buying secondhand:

* Legitimate sellers will always offer a warranty. If all you get is a 7-day Dead On Arrival warranty, then either the seller's dodgy, or the laptop is.
* Read carefully! A good seller will describe the laptop's condition accurately, but that's of no value if the buyer doesn't read it! (I say this because we've listed laptops as "doesn't boot, smashed screen, no hard disk, no memory", and someone's come back and asked us if it works or not.)
* Pentium-3 is probably about as old as you'd want to go, unless you want to buy a brand new hard drive for it. Old HDs tend to fail far too often. (Get a warranty, and take backups.)
* Certain models of laptops have a tendency to fail. Be wary of Toshibas and Compaqs - specifically, the TE2100 and Evo n1000c, but others have had problems too. IBMs are generally reliable, and Dells seem to be around in such quantities that there's always replacements for any faulty parts.

Whatever you get, install XP on it (assuming you want Windows). There are still laptops around with Windows 95 stickers on them, but don't put Win95 on them... if you don't have an XP certificate, I can provide you with one.

Any questions, I'll be happy to answer. Point me to a listing and I'll give you an expert criticism

[kestra]

Coolio,
I've been checking out Laptop Depot's website, in particular the Compaq Presario C501nr Notebook PC

http://www.laptopdepot.ca/store/View...&categoryid=26

would appreciate any opinions and feedback on the model.

[Grantref]

Is that CAN$ or US$? I assume CAN, in which case it's a good price, though you may be able to do better by watching for sales at e.g. Best Buy. For example: $649 Toshiba Laptop

Though in my experience HP/Compaq are a little more reliable than Toshiba, that $599 laptop comes with only a 90 day warranty, versus a year warranty for this one. This one also has more RAM and a dvd burner. Unfortunately it has Vista, but you can't avoid it forever.

[Rosuav]

ARGH. I had a massive reply all typed up, and lost it. Recreating.

First off, you're bound to be paying too much, as it comes with Vista. The very worst Vista, too, if I'm not mistaken. Chuck that if you can.

* Processor: A pretty decent Pentium-M. Roughly equivalent to a P-4 2.6GHz, if that's any indication. It's a Celeron, though, which means it's not quite as good.

* Widescreen. Good if you want it, not if you don't. It's only 15", which means it'll be a little lacking vertically; for word processing work, that might be a nuisance. Anything that doesn't understand widescreen will go "inverted pillarbox" style, wasting the left and right edges of the screen.

* 512MB is about the lowest I'd accept in a P-M laptop. I use a P-3 with 768MB at home, and it's pretty good, but (especially if you're going to run Vista on it) you really want a gig in modern computers. Find out if it's one 512MB module or two 256MB - the former is a lot easier to upgrade.

* 80GB is pretty good. Way overspecced compared to the RAM (or else the RAM is way underspecced compared to the HD). In terms of Windows XP, this is enough room to install the full OS, a dozen applications, and then have room to rip a DVD or two for easy watching. In terms of Vista... hrm... well, skip the DVDs. It's still ample space for most purposes though.

* Combo drive. Nice. Lets you do anything but burn DVDs. Of course, if you don't actually _need_ that, then it's a waste of money. But no big deal.

* Network. Wired and wireless. The former is practically a requirement these days, the latter is an increasingly common luxury. (Turn wireless off if you don't use it, though - Windows'll happily drain your battery searching for a network.)

* Mouse. Trackpoints are more reliable than touchpads, but the touchpad has improved significantly over the years. Personal preference.

* Keyboard. It's a Compaq one, white, not much "travel", and has a row of four keys down the side. Not the most intuitive placement for Home/End/PgUp/PgDn, but that's what they've chosen. Interestingly, that's a widescreen laptop but there's no wasted space around the keyboard. The keys would be that little bit larger.

* Warranty. Comes with 90-day "Depot Warranty" which I presume means RTB (Return To Base, as opposed to On-Site). Good. And you can buy an extended warranty - I think they're kinda overcharging though. $250 warranty on a $300 laptop? Not likely.

* Brand. I don't know that particular model, but Compaqs tend to be built heavy without being tough. For instance, the problem with the N1000c I mentioned earlier is that it has heaps of stuff in it (even an internal floppy drive!), but it simply isn't sturdy enough to survive itself. The regular stresses and strains of use eventually break something. On the flip side, some of the other Compaqs are small enough that they can survive just on that basis.

If you get that one, give it what we call a Drop Test. Have the laptop on, and doing something (just in memory, don't use the hard disk - here at work we use the "Welcome to Windows XP" tour) so you know if it freezes. Lift it 2-3 inches off the desk (I'm assuming you have a wooden desk/table - don't do this onto concrete or any rough surface), keeping it flat and balanced. Drop it, and see if it (a) dies, or (b) freezes. A laptop SHOULD survive that treatment. All laptops probably would, new; but a secondhand one, this is a good judge of whether or not it's suffered in its previous owner's hands.

Check for peer review, or better still, a friend's recommendation - is their warranty good? Do they sort you out no problems, or are you left bashing your head against a wall of blubber?

[Rosuav]

Picking up the one Grantref posted while I was typing: It's very similar, so I'll post the differences between the two.

* CPU: marginally faster. You won't notice the difference unless you get them side by side.

* RAM: This one has a gig. It also tells you that it's 2x512MB, which is nice of them.

* Same size HD. The other one didn't specify a speed, but it's probably the same 5400RPM - unlikely to be faster or they'd say, but could well be slower. Interestingly, they list it as a SATA drive, not PATA (which is more usual). This may have implications if you plan to upgrade that drive, but otherwise it doesn't matter. The Compaq almost certainly has PATA.

* DVD burner. Like the combo drive but more so - more features to either use or not-use.

* Warranty. As Grom says, 1 year is better than 90 days. But again, personal recommendation is worth knowing - how good is their warranty?

I'm disappointed in the lack of photos. It's hard to interpret much from a dead-square front view. I don't even know if that's the laptop in question.

But, overall, this is a better laptop than the other. I don't know that the Compaqs generally are better than Toshibas; note my earlier recommendation against both brands. The Toshies have different problems; a drop test may still be of value, but there's other things to look at/for. If you get this one, check for a screen problem that's all too common in the Portege and Tecra lines: weird screen fractures and discolourations. Normally, if you look at an LCD screen from the wrong angle (eg almost straight above it, when it's up vertical), you should see the colours all wrong, but the image as a whole unchanged. With a lot of the Toshibas, a problem begins to develop resulting in patchy or varied colour change, initially visible only from "wrong angles", but ultimately worsening. It sometimes looks as if someone drew a line graph with the area under the line filled in. Fractures - look near the hinges, bottom left and right of the screen. This is a problem more common with the Acer laptops than with the Toshibas, but it's not unknown with the latter - you end up with a curved black line (first time I saw it, I thought there was a cable arcing up through there, casting a shadow). I've yet to see whether or not the fractures worsen during ordinary use.

Whatever you get, check it over really thoroughly before you do anything, and be prepared to ship it back if there's a problem. If it has faults of any kind, and they didn't mention them, complain. No sense in taking something second rate when you thought it was just second hand.

[kestra]

Thanks Rosuav and Grantref for your points. Pretty much confirmed what I suspected.
Good call on the BestBuy link too. A laptop is more "want" than "need" at this point, however I think they'll switch places over the next 6 months, and that's a good thing!!

[Leshrak]

Originally posted by Rosuav
If you get that one, give it what we call a Drop Test. Have the laptop on, and doing something (just in memory, don't use the hard disk - here at work we use the "Welcome to Windows XP" tour) so you know if it freezes. Lift it 2-3 inches off the desk (I'm assuming you have a wooden desk/table - don't do this onto concrete or any rough surface), keeping it flat and balanced. Drop it, and see if it (a) dies, or (b) freezes. A laptop SHOULD survive that treatment. All laptops probably would, new; but a secondhand one, this is a good judge of whether or not it's suffered in its previous owner's hands.

I don't think I'd really recommend that you do this... a computer shop doing it is OK because you've got the overhead to cover the cost of a "Dead" laptop, but if you're a consumer investing 5-600 in a piece of equipment, it may cause as many unnecessary additional costs in the long run to have it diagnosed/repaired as it would have for you to buy a brand new laptop in the first place.

[Rosuav]

Do it inside warranty. If it fails, it was faulty/suspect to start with.