Travel Technology - Buying an inexpensive laptop...

My old Dell Inspiron (circa 2001) finally croaked. Screen is finicky and the keyboard is pretty much dead. Since the unit is not worth fixing, I'm going to buy a better laptop.

Question is...what is the best source for buying a reliable, cheap laptop? I have all the software (including XP Pro) I need already. The primary use for the machine is email, surfing, and some Microsoft Office work. It's my 2nd computer at home. Basically, I'm thinking a Pentium 3 or similar, 256MB, 5 gig HD, USB 2.0, a CD drive, and a PCMCIA slot for my WiFi card. Anything above that is a bonus.

I see thousands and thousands of laptops being sold on eBay. I see lots of laptops that meet my needs in the $200-400 range. I'm just wondering if there are other sources besides eBay to consider. A refurb unit is fine - in fact, I'm pretty much expecting a refurb since I don't need any of the newest features.

Most, if not all of the manfg's have a refurb website where you can get refurb units. I believe some even sell on e-bay.

In the end, with the bottom end laptops just over $600, you really aren't saving that much with a refurb.

http://electrified.com/Catalog/?CategoryID=53
We have had good luck with them

I'm thinking that $200-400 is a bit too low if you want to run XP. XP plus office will eat enough of a 5 GB HD that you won't be able to do much more with it.

But if you really want USB 2.0 you're probably going to be looking at a 20 GB hard drive at the minimum (which is plenty for casual surfing plus a few downloads, etc.).

I'm thinking that $200-400 is a bit too low if you want to run XP. XP plus office will eat enough of a 5 GB HD that you won't be able to do much more with it.

The unit I have right now would sell for $250 on eBay if it were in good shape. Maybe less - it's an Inspiron with a 633MHz processor and 256MB of RAM. It runs XP Pro fine. Slow startup, but it works. The 5 gig HD I have now is mostly eaten up by my applications and OS. I keep very little user data of any kind on the machine - if I want to manipulate a big file (which I rarely do), I just plug in one of my external hard drives. USB 2.0 is desired to use those drives.

Sure, I'd love a bit bigger HD. I was just throwing out my bare-minimum needs. I definitely don't need a $600 laptop. I already have a very fast desktop that has room to upgrade for a couple of years. I can take it up to twin P4's and two gigs of RAM if I need top performance.

I recently purchased a low-end Toshiba Satellite for $599 after rebates. Since, I have a PDA with Wifi and BT and I don't do anything too taxing, I didn't see the need for spending tons of money.

I found that the deals on refurbed items were just not very good. One would think that companies, like Dell, would just sell them fire sale; however, I think they tend to price them at a discount compared to new ones at list price. If you are any sort of savvy shopper, you can get a new laptop below list price if you shop around.

You kept your previous Dell for about four years--unless every penny counts, $200-300 more for a brand new warrantied laptop with a 15"/15.4" screen, 256MB+RAM, 40GB+HDD, built-in WiFi, DVD/CDRW, USB 2.0 and maybe Firewire would be well worth it.

If you are pinching pennies, I'd just see about finding a one or two year old used lower-end laptop from a private party on eBay then.

i'll make a pitch for my favourite laptop maker.

micron pc -- go to their refurbished page and see what you can get.

http://www.mpccorp.com/factory_outlet/

I just bought my fourth in eight years (some are for work, I don't eat them for breakfast...) :)

lala

I have an IBM T21 that I purchased from ebay four months ago, $485.00 with freight.
They are a bit cheaper now.

Be ready to buy a new battery when you get it. You may not have to, but be ready for it.

micron pc -- go to their refurbished page and see what you can get.http://www.mpccorp.com/factory_outlet/

Well I hope with this recommendation you are offering to help pay for the bulk of the refurbed Micron laptop. The cheapest one for the listing today is $1392. That's some $992 more than the upper end of pinniped's range. ;)

okay, they are not the cheapest, but I got a nice 1K discount on my swanky "desktop" replacement.

lala

There is an in-store only three day sale going on an Office Depot and they have a new HP Pavilion notebook for $499 after rebates. HP.com has info on the ZE4900 series notebook.

HP ZE4940US
1.3GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
40GB HDD
DVD/CDRW
XP Home
802.11G
15" XGA
2-USB 2.0

Overstock.com is a decent place to find refurbed laptops.

Gotapex.com posts deals related to Dell mostly, but will also post Compaq/HP deals once in a while too. It's worth checking out, sometimes Dell runs crazy deals on there laptops...

EDIT: Overstock.com is a good place for refurb IBM Thinkpad T2x's

There is an in-store only three day sale going on an Office Depot and they have a new HP Pavilion notebook for $499 after rebates. HP.com has info on the ZE4900 series notebook.

HP ZE4940US
1.3GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
40GB HDD
DVD/CDRW
XP Home
802.11G
15" XGA
2-USB 2.0

Doggonit...you guys are going to talk me into buying a new laptop, aren't you? ;)

I have an Office Depot down the street from work. I might go check it out... Although I hate rebates and know that the 'Net can usually beat brick & mortar on electronics, there's certainly some value in being able to drive home with a new, warrantied unit...

Thanks for the tip...

It all depends on how much weight you want to carry -- the lowend laptops, at least all that I've looked at are over $1000. I just bought (on Ebay) a P3, 750Mhz Toshiba portege, 12G hard drive, 320Mb ram, 13.3" display, docking station with FDD and DVD drive for $315 all in. Weight w/o docking station is about 3 lbs. There are others like this, most a bit more expensive -- search for portege 7200/7220. I had to fdisk and reformat the HD because it had been running Win2000; I installed Win98SE and then upgraded to WinXPsp2 with no problems.
That is the kind of laptop I like to take with me.
tom

Doggonit...you guys are going to talk me into buying a new laptop, aren't you? ;)

Thanks for the tip...

My pleasure. Keep us updated. :)

There is an in-store only three day sale going on an Office Depot and they have a new HP Pavilion notebook for $499 after rebates. HP.com has info on the ZE4900 series notebook.

HP ZE4940US
1.3GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
40GB HDD
DVD/CDRW
XP Home
802.11G
15" XGA
2-USB 2.0

Thanks Ben! (http://www.bensbargains.net/ktalk/1106256848,26732,.shtml)