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And if so, where do you tend to shop?
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And if so, where do you tend to shop?
never
Prices really have rocketed, especially over the last 12 months. I get some stuff from Gumtree which seems quite good. It's interesting you mention buying your smart phone second hand... I find there are lots of cheap phones with broken screens on Gumtree that are relatively easy to fix. You just have to be quick as they seem to go the same day if they are a real bargain.Quote:
Originally Posted by HEXUS
Doesn't seem to be as good for components though as they aren't much cheaper second hand and can be dodgy :(
All the time - but only from Hexites or people I feel I can trust at OCUK. Never from eBay or Gumtree.
Yes I have done several times, recently I bought a 1TB SSD from CEX.
But I usually buy top end gear and have usually sold them on at a decent price through either Amazon or Gumtree once I have upgraded. I tend to upgrade quite often as I like to have the newest tech.
Been buying (and selling) off the OCUK Members Market for some 12 years now and never once had a problem. Like most things in life, it's just a matter of taking care and doing your homework. Though always the chance to come unstuck I suppose. Used to buy/sell on Ebay, but I've had a few problems over the years (especially as a seller) so gave up here.
Yeah, I've bought graphics cards many times via eBay. I never had a bad one. With the amount of money I saved, if I'd had a dud then I still would have done great out of it overall.
I sell all my old iPhones. Sell them for $300 US. They sell so fast. I will get 50 emails in 20 mins. I have a Strix 980Ti I want to sell next but it has to go back to ASUS 1st and get fixed. One of the 3 fans do not spin. Hope I can get $300 for that.
the fairs are still going but i stopped going about 12-13 years ago found out that scan was cheaper and better service that some guy who 'might' come to the next show or I could try and chase on the phone.
My rift I got from cash converters though and been tempted a couple of times with CEX
I prefer to buy new as much as possible, so that there are no doubts as to the condition that it will be in or any extra bother if I were to need to use the warranty.
That doesn't mean that I'm against buying second-hand in any way however, as I'll happily compare the savings and risk and buy if I deem it to be worth it, as I did with my current CPU, GPU and headset (the last item technically being new due to a change of mind on the part of the seller, if I recall correctly) from eBay sellers. I have bought from users on the HEXUS Classifieds a few times in the past too (and continue to be on the look-out for anything I may be interested in).
As for the computer fairs, it has been a number of years since I last went to one, and if I recall correctly, I bought some PC speakers that seemed to be reasonably priced, but overall it struck me as being generally overpriced compared to buying from various online retailers.
Can only remember buying a CPU (Q8400 i seem to recall) which worked fine and still is in a machine i then sold on.
Nearest i regularly get is when a new model of something is coming out and the older one is discounted, i then opt for the older model if the performance gain on the newer is nothing exceptional.
Bit of a mix, I find newer stuff isn't cheap enough to justify used a lot of the time.
With that I most use cex, as you get a warranty and usually pay around the ebay rate.
There are several local second hand market places here in Denmark. And they seem to be doing quite well.
My most rescent purchases were a set of speakers, i have a favorite kind i been using since the late 1990´s, and they dont come as "new" anymore.
And then i bought 4 WD red HDD's at 3 TB each for about 200$ total. ranging from 8k to 18k power on hours, and about 50 total power on cycles.
If buying anything through a computer store then it is second hand already, they buy from the company who made the piece of hardware and put a fee on to cover the losses and earn a little.
It should be 3rd hand if any.
Depends what you're after really doesn't it - I've managed a couple of tech related bargains on ebay, but i know it can be hit and miss in quality...
I do keep an eye on the classifieds here too!
If you need something though, it's often quicker to get new rather than try and find 2nd hand
yes, all the time. buying and selling. i buy here, ebay for selling, and avforums at times or facebook sales but lots of rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish on there. prices have gone up, especially the older stuff but you can get some bargains.
Prices have increased because manufacturers are charging more. I am afraid the golden era of cheap components is over.
Samsung S3 1TB HDD used to cost £30 and have 3 years warranty.
16GB DDR3 RAM could be bought for £50.
Good times...
No, because the kit will still carry the mfr warranty, be unused and (should be) in the sealed mfrs packaging. Applying your logic, the goods would be third or fourth hand as they may have passed through a shipping agency and a distributor and maybe a wholesaler before going to the retailer.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuorTek
I tend to buy new as well, for a variety of reasons, most of which have been mentions by others already.
An interesting point about computer fairs though. I think that a lot of us in the tech hobby world would *like* there to be more of a demand for them (who doesn't like a good rummage!). The main problem I see though is that with the expansion of variety of goods available thanks to internet shopping, along with the wealth of information/reviews we now have access to... finding *exactly* what you're after at any particular fair becomes quite difficult. Perhaps we've become a bit spoilt by all this choice and things were just simpler in times gone by.
I used to buy 360 controller batteries from CEX but they never cleaned them and somehow thought it was acceptable to sell them with the previous owners finger gunk in all the grooves.
CPUs I'll get from eBay as their pricing is ridiculous for brand new from a store.
I've never bought a single piece of tech second hand. I've had things like monitors and PC's given to me for free, where I have made use of the components, but I've never actually bought something that has previously been used. I'm always a bit wary of second hand tech, since things like CPU's, graphics cards, or motherboards, may have been overclocked alot and have very little life left in them. It's a bit like a car in that you don't know how the previous driver has driven it, but at least with a car, if you buy from a dealer you can get a short warranty with second hand cars if you had any issues, whereas buying something off ebay and having it fail a couple of weeks later means you're stuck with a brick.
Not very often, no,
I don't have anything against the idea, provided I trust (*) the seller, but these days, I'm pretty selective about what I buy, and buy very specific items, and don't buy much at all so I would need to be pretty lucky for exactly the right thing to come up, at exactly the right time, from someone I trust.
What it boils down to is I'm pretty risk-averse, and extremely hassle-averse, and buying new minimises both. Even when buying new, though, I'm pretty selective about where I buy, and price is not the top criteria.
(*) The more expensive the item, the more important this is and the less inclined I am to take a punt.
I try not to buy 2nd hand tech as I never seem to have a good experience due to me being so fussy about my hardware. I do however sell plenty and get nothing but good feedback, my recent Dell XPS 9550 sale was a good example, the guy who bought it came back and said he had trouble finding anything to indicate it was anything other than brand new and he was amazed it met the description.
I recently bought a 2nd hand Sony A77m2 and 16-50 lens from LCE, it lived for 3 days then intermittently failed to start, after a few more uses it failed to recognise the lens so I tried my £800 lens, it failed to recognise this as well. Turns out it fried the chips in both lenes so I am now waiting to see if LCE come good and repair the lens FOC. I expect they wont!
never do.
I have done it. Not often overall, but I have done it, I've snatched some pretty decent bargains.
Namely, a guitar amp worth over £500-600 new for £120 delivered off a buying from Ebay. It was cheque only (back when you still had options other than Paypal), and it was not a power user or anything (just 30 odd positive feedback). Probably one of my biggest punt, but I ended up with an amp in pristine condition still with the price tag on it. The seller basically said it was too big and powerful, and as it was past the return period, he just wanted to get rid of it (he also provided the receipt as proof). I don't think he realised how expensive it would be to send it, but it was a serious bargain for me..
My biggest transaction was that of a projector bought from an AVForum user. New, it would be £2000, and the seller wanted £1200 for it. I went to inspect it before buying it and carry it back, but I must say that I was quite nervous entering someone's home with that much cash on me. Still, once again, it was a steal, the projector (lamp) had only a dozen hours on it, and the seller only wanted to sell it because he decided that he wanted to go all out and buy an even higher end model after all.
On the other hand, another time I bought a microphone on Ebay, a well regarded but old and discontinued product and it was a dud. The seller clearly just wanted to clear some stuff, didn't test it, and didn't even know that the battery left in the mic had turned into (probably toxic) powder. Since I don't have any bitter memory I probably got a refund.. If not, it would've been about £15 down the drain.
I must say that those were all quite some time ago, and I do find myself buying new for the past few years..
Yep, bought quite a number of items from ebay like cpu, gpu, mainboard, ssd and had only a couple of issues.
Had a few from cex, had to return a duff drive and a duff cpu but was no hassle.
Computers are more of a hobby, and funds are tight, so if I can get what I need at a lower price then that's what I do. I rarely need the latest tech.
I used to buy and sell a lot on here - but these days I always buy new.
I still sell my old kit though - usually to CEX as they always overpay for your items :) I'd never buy from them as they are a complete rip off to buyers, but it's a great place to sell to! Failing that i've used ebay for getting rid of things that CEX don't want, which as long as you don't accept returns (and pay for insured shipping) is generally fine. Again I don't tend to buy second hand tech from ebay though, too much hassle.
OCUK members market, AVforums and ebay are my haunts for used tech.
Yes, all the time.
My last GPU was second hand (AMD 5870) which I bought from a community forum to replace my GTX 280 which had given up, It was a good solid card and I still keep it around as a backup.
Apart from that, if i want to do a special project I browse ebay for cheap stuff, for example for the last 6 months or so i've been looking for a retro 40's/50's) looking radio or nintendo nes to build a small PC into.
That sounds like a great idea. I always fancied something like these
http://www.slipperyskip.com/page23.html
Never bought second-hand.
When I see how much trouble 1st-hand stuff can be, I don't wish to get 2nd-hand, due to warranty problems.
Perhaps I should but I don't buy computer tech very often, so when I do buy computer gear I'm looking for something that will last.
I do buy a lot of other stuff used clothes and consumer durables from charity shops. Why woud I pay loads for a good shirt when I can get one for a fiver, a few hundred for Barker shoes when they are £20 or a grand for a Canali sports jacket when I can get it for £20 at the Oxer. Hell, yeah I love a bargain but when there's little that will go wrong or it's be repairable which is increasingly difficult at component level with ICT gear, mostly if parts are needed.
I bought a turntable and a moving coil amp S/H about 20 years ago and they are still going strong.
I made the mistake of buying a whole PC from Cash Convertors once. It only lasted about a year and I was screwed by the OS being pre-installed.
I'll be looking for a laptop in the future and with so mana having RAM and eMMCs soldered in, I might need to go to the S/H market to get one that is upgradeable (though I could rework a board if I was certain I could find compatible eMMCs).
Some of my test equipment is second hand. I got great deals on that an Agilent bench PSU for £35, just needed a jumper moved and optionally the PROM upgraded.
I got a Mobo, CPU and RAM from a kind fellow off on Freegle when my last one died after 12 years use and I had no cash.
Noice!Quote:
Originally Posted by Phage
My current PC is pretty much all second hand except the case (which has now seen me through well over a decade of rebuilds!) and PSU (the original custom PSU from my case went kaput many years ago). The majority of the components were bought from wonderful Hexites through the FS forum here, with the GPU coming refurbed from Novatech.
While most of my old unused tech has been sold (either here or on ebay), one nice way a group of my friends started to move our old stuff on was by having geekcycle parties; one of us would host, everyone would bring any old stuff (not just tech, but games, books, clothes etc.) they didn't use any more, and take home anything they thought would be handy. At least two people took home entire new computers from those parties :)
I wouldn't have the skills to do most of those, I've followed a few of the build logs on bit-tech and the people are very skilled indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phage
They certainly are !Quote:
Originally Posted by DemonHighwayman
I've been halfwqay tempted to get some one to do something like the <a href="http://slipperyskip.com/page28.html">Mission </a> or the <a href="http://slipperyskip.com/page30.html">Mid-Century Madness</a> shouldn't be beyond the with of a local cabinet maker. In each case you are mostly sliding an existing tower into a ventilated enclosure.
All I need is unlimited funds !
With today's inflation & wages (what seems decreasing) on a standstill YES lots. I do seem to find that 2nd hand prices are very silly, some people asking £10/£20 less than full retail or pricing what they feel is right rather than looking up what's relevant. The people that do price wisely or just want some coin for their old gear are quickly snapped up !
My GTX 970 is from CEX, everything else was either bought new or won as a prize :-)
for me it's pretty much 50% of it, new cutting edge I simply can't justify the expense on my wages :D
That being said either I'm lucky or tech is becoming more builet proof because I've not ebayed anything yet that doesn't work as it should.
I used to be that kind of guy that would only buy new.
Been (mostly) buying used components for upgrading the PCs on my home for the last 5 years, never had a problem so far.
Don't really need the latest tech available, just good & robust hardware for gaming and some 3D creation, so the used market saves me a lot of money.
Well, when the latest Rogue One DVD failed to play properly on my PC (apparently a common fault with Disney DVDs), it turns out that I bought a cheap DVD player second hand on ebay. I'd forgotten all about it until I saw the confirmatory email...
And during the same drunken purchasing session I bought a satirical tee shirt- 'breaking bread'- a photoshopped Jesusified image of Walter White doing the aforementioned...
Well, if the DVD player works then at least one out of two isn't bad...
Every time I've seen used stuff advertised here, it's priced too high for the risk, lack of rights and hassle.
Look here: http://forums.hexus.net/classifieds/...k-monitor.html (nothing against the poster. Nothing wrong with selling for what people are prepared to pay :) )
Only £90 cheaper than new from ebuyer. No warranty. Probably a couple of years old. Less than a 30% discount. If it breaks 1 week after buying, no comeback. I'd rather buy new.
I have however bought parts from buy it now sellers on Ebay such as an E5649 CPU for my server and lots of 8GB RAM sticks. The only reason is that the CPU isn't available new and it was prices extremely well (Sub £50) and the RAM was a small fraction of its new Price. That's worth taking the risk for. However I had a 30 day warranty on those parts.
Got some good stuff from the Hexus forums, and sold stuff there as well. Generally don't shop further afield, except for my little 2-in-1 for dirt cheap from ebay privately when Argos were piling a load of refurbs on at the same time.
Maybe just my experiences, but computer kit these days doesn't seem to degrade that much. 'If it works for a year it works for 10' sort of thing so happy with something second hand from somewhere you trust it to turn up working.
I've bought a Wacom Tablet off my brother and a couple of a Nintendo Game and Watch things off EBay, that's about it.