2nd Hand Laptop

[oshta]

Im looking to buy a secondhand laptop (off ebay)
- i dont want to spend much, proberbly only about £200max, i just want somthink that will run win2k that i can wirelessly network to our other pc's to surf the web and do a bit of word pro'ing. And then be able to take it on holiday with a 56k modem (and or a wireless 3g card?)

- But havving never had anythink to do with laptops, i dont really know what im looking for? - what should i be looking out for in a 2nd hand one?

Daniel

[Moby-Dick]

look for ones with new batteries as you'll find that one in that range will most likely have knackered batteries

[oshta]

yeah, that make sence, thanks.

- Anything else major?

[Voodle]

Make sure it starts off with around 256mb of ram if you can find one with that much. Ram for older laptops is expensive and hard to find since you have to use specific types of memory. You might be able to find a P3 laptop for that price, if you can find one, go for a speedstep one because of the battery life improvememnts.

[Spud1]

for £200 you can get a laptop to easily fulfill most of your requests.

Look for an IBM thinkpad if you can, a 560 Series one would do you. I had one of these off ebay for £150 last year, Pentium2 233mhz MMX, 8meg onboard GFX, 8gig HD, and 128meg of ram, oh and built in 56k modem.

I ran windows 98se on it fine (wouldnt bother with 2k on an old laptop tbh, waste of resources), put in a wireless network PC card (£15 USR one), got an external floppy (£10), and a brand new battery (£60)

Its a tiny laptop, very thin and light but no drives built into it (ie no cd or floppy). I just did a network install of win98 tho (easy to do) and transfer anything i want on it via the wireless lan. Works great for web browsing in the lounge, kitchen, garden etc or for listening to music streams from my main PC upstairs

As a more general guide, READ EVERY AUCTION CAREFULLY, and if somethings too good to be true, it will be. Lots of auctions for old laptops state things like 'something untested' etc, ignore these too, assume that 'untested' means 'broken'.

Check that the seller will take it back if it doesnt work, and check the status of the battery, try and get a guarentee of its life off the seller. Budget for a new one too.

Another problem common with old laptops aside from the battery is the screen, often theres some screen burn or 'warping' that isnt obvious from some photo's.

If the auction has lots of photos you can spot this easy enough though If not then email the seller and ask for some ;0

[Voodle]

Oh yeah - Good condition on ebay can mean its scratched up or the screen has pressure marks. Untested battery almost ALWAYS means dead battery
And like spud1 says, photos are good. The more of those there are, the more likely it is that the seller is fairly honest about what they're selling.
Some good laptops can be had with buy it now, if you sort by either price or most recently listed items.

[joshwa]

Check whether Vat is included / check postage costs / check whether you get any warranty with it.

some sellers tend to say vat isn't included, then add up the final price + postage costs and then add vat on top of that. :/

[5cupa]

look for ones with new batteries as you'll find that one in that range will most likely have knackered batteries

defo as moby said as a new battery depending on model might cost you anything between £30-100. also cjeck the screen is 100% as older laptops suffer from slight burn out at the edges. and check what pcmcia versions it has or you will have to go for usb wireless

[Marcos]

I've but a few laptops on ebay, you're pretty safe with sellers with (recent) good ratings.

Also some of the older laptop hard drives and fans are stupidly noisy, so if want to relax/concentrate when you use the machine you may have to replace those.

[rungumrun]

second hand laptop

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i have been offered the following laptop for £175, is this a good deal
14” TFT Screen Blue & Silver Notebook (slightly scruffy)
Intel Celeron 1.7Ghz CPU
20Gb Hard Disk
512Mb Memory
Windows XP Professional
Power supply
Battery with between 1 & 2 hours life
Windows XP COA on sticker
Works Suite including Word
Norton Anti-Virus 2005
DVD / CDRW Combo drive
2 x USB ports
Infra Red port
Internal 56K modem
PCMCIA Slot
Parallel Port
External Monitor Port
S-Video output

appreciate any advice as i know very little about laptops but need something portable and able to produce local primary school newletter.

[alsenior]

the celeron might be a bit weak and also they lack any sort of power management but if it is a mobile celeron then that isn't too bad. if it is a desktop be prepared to use a cushion or lap tray as they can get pretty toasty. also you don't say what make it is.