looking for cheap laptops

[dkeav]

looking to buy laptop anything above 300mhz , 5gig 64mb and less than $400 U.S. i dont see as that is a problem

[viperlin]

good luck with the cops, your best bet at that price is one with no serial number


dream on

[SeT]

i just checked pricewatch.com for that. they've got some decent "Not Exactly New" IBM's and Compaq's listed but $400 is cutting it very close...

[wapcaplet]

If it doesn't have to be new, you might have good luck with eBay or Yahoo auctions or the like. A quick check of laptops there shows a bunch at around that speed, for $400 or less. Some even have a "buy it now" price, but with a little bit of bidding I bet you could come away with a good one for less than $400. (Some of them are even new!)

Edit: Right now on eBay, the Dell P2 300Mhz 64MB, 6G HD laptops are closing at around $350.

Edit #2: Hell, at this price, I might have to go pick one up myself...

[RWiggum]

Originally posted by viperlin
good luck with the cops, your best bet at that price is one with no serial number


dream on

I disagree. I bought a refurb Thinkpad direct from IBM off of eBay last November. It's a 550MHz Celeron, 12GB, and had 64MB + ethernet/modem combo card. I paid $525. They had slower machines (mainly PII's) with smaller hdd's for around $400. Do a seller search for ibm_global_financing and see what they have running. They get laptops in batches, so if you don't see anything wait a few weeks and they'll have dozens up.

[viperlin]

never thought of ebay
don't trust it

and on my first visit to ebay (september 12th)
some twats were selling rubble
yes rubble, from the terrorist attack the day before.

i was deeply insulted and offended by it.

but now i am starting to look at getting stuff off ebay

[wapcaplet]

Originally posted by viperlin
never thought of ebay
don't trust it

and on my first visit to ebay (september 12th)
some twats were selling rubble
yes rubble, from the terrorist attack the day before.


Well, yes, there are some dicks on eBay, but for the most part it's not hard to pick them out. I've made probably 100 eBay transactions and have only had problems once or twice. Got a couple laptops there a few years back which are still serving me well.

[viperlin]

ok, maybe i'll give e-bay a surf and add it to my list of places to look for stuff.

thanks, i got a laptop for christmas (legal one)

Fujitsu Lifebook C325
P1 266MHz
2MB Graphics card
form of Soundblaster 16
96MB RAM
2 PCMCIA slots
CDROM Drive
Floppy Drive
Really good speakers
MDK9.0

thats right, so far the only thing i have not got working is the IRDA port, i have no use for it, but it would be nice to skip tracks in xmms with my TV remote (don't bother tryin to help with that)

[pzengota]

Check out www.laptopcafe.com (http://www.laptopcafe.com) . I haven't been there in a while, but I seem to remember that they had a good selection of used/refurbished laptops for pretty cheap.

[dkeav]

starting bids on ebay for 333mhz 128mbram 6gig are around $100 and selling for usually less than 200 why on earth would anyone pay more for that since you can get a brand new dell pushing 2ghz and blah blah for 899 base face it folks these things are paperweights get out while you can still get something for them

[wapcaplet]

Originally posted by dkeav
starting bids on ebay for 333mhz 128mbram 6gig are around $100 and selling for usually less than 200 why on earth would anyone pay more for that

It's pretty amazing what you will sometimes see things sell for on auction sites. Maybe it has something to do with more limited availability in some places... Plus it can be kind of dangerously easy to keep bidding higher and higher (in competition with the other bidders), and lose sight of the actual value of the thing you're bidding on.

A few years ago I was auctioning off some of my old computer components. I had 64MB EDO RAM that someone bid $70 on (and won), when it was not even worth half that. I didn't complain, of course :)

[DaveT47]

Check out UBid.com. I bought an HP refurb that is a newer AthlonXP processor20GB, 512MB, NIC, 56K for a little over $600, so you might find a slower (older) machine for around your price range. Best bet is finding one that closes late at night or early am and stay with it the last few minutes so that someone doesn't outbid you at the last second.

DaveT47

[cage47]

Yeah, I second the e-bay route. I just picked up a Thinkpad 760el. The screen went out the day I got it and the guy was good enough to refund me $15 to get another screen. And I bought another 56K modem from someone. He originally sent me a 33.6k modem and when I told him he said keep the 33.6 and sent me the 56k anyhow (2 for the price of one and the 33.6 is flashable to 56k). YMMV