Hey everyone,

I did some more searching today for laptops and found the IBM Refurbished section.

IBM Refurbished Laptops

The T22 for $799 and the T23 for $949 both look great. My only question is how well will they run Windows 2000 on the T22 and Windows XP on the T23? I would get the one year extended warranty, add a WiFi card, and increase the RAM. Also I would purchased Microsoft Office. I'm seriously looking at these as they are refurbished by IBM, 1 year warranty, and are cheaper than buying brand new. My folks love it too. Any comments about the IBM refurbished laptops would be great. I think these would work well for my needs at college. The T series is also only about 5lbs.

Thanks,
Lance

The prices look a little high to me.

Last spring I got 1.4 GHz HP laptop from Circuit City for ~$800 (open box). You should be able to get a better machine than that for the same price today.

Just glanced at Dell, and there are a couple of 2.4 GHz laptops for under $750.

New Notebooks from Dell are easily available for $700 or so on their site, with a DVD drive, XP, 256, etc. I wouldn't even consider refurbished from somebody else if I could get brand new, with a new warantee (and depending on when you buy you will get free shipping, free service upgrades, free memory, lots of promotions going on).

Both CompUSA and Best Buy have had Toshiba laptops down to $749 after rebates the last few weeks (2.4 celeron, 256 memory). I bought a Toshiba a year ago for $749 and have been pretty happy with it (it replaced a Dell that I gave away). I looked at CompUSA's web site today and they have a faster Toshiba for $849 after rebates, but if you're not in a rush you'll probably see something for $749 again over the next few weeks. The promotion seems to repeat itself every few weeks. I only use mine for internet access when I'm away from home, and it works fine for that.

You should be fine. I have run XP Pro on numerous DT/LT computers upgrading from Win98 etc. FWI I am typing this on a 4-5 old Sony desktop. It originally came with a Sony ver of Win98. On the Sony site they state specifically state they do NOT recommend installing XP. In actual fact XP Pro has run flawlessly on it (and on 3 other computers) for over 2-3 years. BTW Win2000 also ran fine on all the DT/LT but XP Pro runs far nicer.

I bought a new IBM T40 for about $1580. It comes with a 3 year warranty, XP Pro, 40GB etc. That aint too far from the costs of upgrading the older refurb units you described etc.

MisterNice

[This message has been edited by MisterNice (edited Jan 12, 2004).]

Having worked with Dell laptops, I would consider almost anyone else's refurbished before I bought a Dell, even a new one ... but that's just me.

Dell makes fine desktop computers. I have set company policy so that no other brands can be bought.

But that's desktops. We tried Dell laptops, and we tried Sony laptops, and Toshiba, and IBM.

Sony are just crap. Four out of five had maintenance problems. No more Sony's.

Dell laptops are NOT Dell computers. They are made by a third-party VAR in Taiwan, unlike Dell's desktop computers, which are made by Dell. They are not as bad as Sony's, but they aren't very good either. We gave up on them about two years ago.

Toshibas are ok. Never had a lot of problems with them.

But IBMs are by far the best of the lot. GREAT keyboards, great reliability, and great features. Cost competitive with Toshiba. My T40 is thin and full featured. The only laptops we now buy are IBMs.

Either should handle either OS just fine. You'll need twice as much memory to get similar performance out of XP Pro as Win 2k. By way of example, my X20 running Win 2k (p3 600Mhz, 384 Mb RAM) performs as well as my R40 with XP Pro (Centrino 1.4 Ghz, 768 Mb RAM).

I disagree with a previous poster that XP Pro is nicer, but we probably have differing criteria.