cheap laptop

[thcri]

Having Laptops for about the last ten years Chris I would seriously look at the major manufactures and compare their refurbished ones with their new ones. In the last 5 years laptops have gotten a lot better and more reliable. I have seen new ones for as little as $500.00. I would watch refurbished ones from companies that are not affiliated with the major manufacture. The last 3 laptops I have bought have been Dells and all three are still running. And you may think your wife won't use it much, but you may be surprised, she may use it more than you think. Once she has it she may find more uses for it. But you could always buy a nicer one if she does use it.

murph

I actually am looking for just an old DOS based one to run a certain program. But find they are around $400.00 yet.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm presently looking at a stack of 14 dead laptops of various makes and models stacked on my workbench which has been declared the "secret laptop burial ground". If anything goes wrong with the display or mobo and the unit is over three years old, there is a good chance that the repair part is going to cost more than the price of a new laptop, if the parts are available at all. I just keep these units around to scavenge parts from. Unless you know the history of the machine, or get a factory refurb with warranty, beware. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( out if parts and drivers are available. IBM is (was at least) very good in htis regard. )</font>

While I did find a few refurbs in the 150-299 range.. they were pretty low end.

I took everyones advice and hit the 'big 3' looking for recertified units. I think I have settled on a 1.6ghz refurb from IBM for about 350$

That was slightly more than i wanted to spend.. but looks like it will have the best support.. and also not be so severly obsolete once delivered, as the other units would be. This weekend the wife went on a computer kick. As well as deciding she needed a laptop, she also decided her desktop is too outdated ( it is!.. it's a 400mhz amd ) We hadn't been in a rush to update either of our home computers as all we do is email / typing on them... However.. a few months ago my old 433 celeron unit died, and i got a new shiny fast compaq with all the bells and whistles, and I guess the wife finally got tired of looking at her old PC... which still runs.. but is just so slowww at this point.) We went to all the box stores.. OD, CC, BB, Staples, Target, Sams, and walmart. We wrote down all the specs for each machine .. dvd/cd burner or reader.. usb / hdd / ram / cpu / price

Made a matrix chart.. and came up with a 'cheapy' unit from walmart that scored overall highest features for lowest money.. I'm not specifically a low baller on computers as i know you get what you pay for.. but again.. wife just needs the desktop pc for 'at home' school work as she is a teacher.

As an added bonus.. she is taking her old PC to school, so the kids have computers to work on. We've been doing this for almost 10 years now that is.. taking our old PC's to her classroom and setting them up with educational software for 'computer learning stations' for the kids. I've even picked up a few 25$ and 50$ yardsale specials that were low end pentium etc.. and set them up in the classroom. Now, one entire wall in her music room is a row of pc workstations. I also set the wife up with a audio/video system, a few speakers, and other goodies like a wireless keyboard.. etc, so she can set at her desk or walk around and do presentations int he classsroom... setup has a few tv's chained together and a small pa system.. she also has a wireless headset microphone to save her voice. Neat little setup. Every year at 'employee' review time she always gets extra 'check marks' int he 'use of technology' section.. seems to make the principle happy.

I'm going to start a new thread about the review on the pc I bought at walmart.

souNdguy

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> As an added bonus.. she is taking her old PC to school, so the kids have computers to work on. We've been doing this for almost 10 years now </font>

That's awsome. Our kids' school's computer lab is twentyeight PII 166MHZ PCs. They function quite well with Win98 and open office software and mozilla. A company upgraded to flat panels and donated 28 matching CRTs to us. It all adds up and the kids benefit. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif