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Hardware

Low-end Laptops? 397

Posted by michael from the stupid-blade-of-justice dept.
cryingpoet writes: "I remember the good old days, before everyone wanted a cell phone or PDA, back when you could buy a used laptop for $80 (USD). Now all the affordable laptops have hit the recycling bins as raw materials for new screens. To make matters worse, the state of the economy has driven companies to stop upgrading and keep all used laptops "in-house." Most used laptops run twice their cpu clock speed in dollars [$ = MHz * 2($/MHz)]. Auction prices seem to be worse than that of wholeseller. So I come to you, /.ers, in the hopes that there are still some used laptop deals to be had. Is there such a thing as a low-end used laptop anymore, and where?"
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Low-end Laptops? More

Low-end Laptops?

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  • Swap meets. (Score:4, Informative)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:42PM (#3135623)
    Is there such a thing as a low-end used laptop anymore, and where?

    I've had good luck at ham fests and swap meets and the like for stuff like this. In this case, "low-end" means Pentium 133 or thereabouts, but the price is usually okay.

    I remember someone with a whole truck full of laptops from the Department of Agriculture at a hamfest I went to last year.

    --saint

    • Auctions.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by d.valued ( 150022 )
      If you live in a large enough major metro area, you could always check out liquidation auctions...

      I've gone to the Homelife auction, the iXL.com and Pencom.com auction, and the prices for laptops were prety low. Granted, some were broken, but the ones that worked were only, like, a hundred twenty bucks or so.

      I got some good harware cheap, like a desktop Compaq 233MMX with no ram and no optical drive for twenty bucks. Saw a Thinkpad sell for $50, a Libretto for 60, etc.

    • Re:Swap meets. (Score:3, Informative)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      Hamfests are good too. You'd not believe the hardware you can find at a hamfest -- a few years back I was at one and found a mint condition TI 99/4A with the original Amazing cartridge. I was very tempted to buy it for nostalgia reasons (My first computer was a TI 99/4A) but didn't have room for it.

      For those of you going "What the hell is he talking about," a hamfest is where a bunch of ham radio enthusiasts get together and do swap meet like stuff.

  • there's always a deal to be found... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thitcho ( 550380 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:42PM (#3135626) Homepage
    as long as you can run faster than the security guards at Best Buy.

    • Re:there's always a deal to be found... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Cheetah86 ( 136854 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:50PM (#3135657) Homepage
      You might also need to run faster than the salespeople too... 'Hi, it seems you're stealing this laptop right now. Would you like a 3-year warrantee on it? It will protect it from all normal wear and tear...'
      • One of my friends worked at Staples and when somebody stole a laptop they were forbidden to chase them because it would create a hostile environment for the other customers.
        • Although I went to a Staples here where three police cars were parked at the entrance, and cops being led to the computer section when I was entering. Seems like some Staples prefer the hostile environment by having many uniformed officers in plain sight, rather than keeping undercover/off-duty ones or security guards around.

          Still, no matter how much is stolen, three cars is way too many.
          • Not if you live in a small town. I live in a town with about ~30,000 people (which in my opinion is smaller)... and anytime anything happens it seems the entire police force is there.
          • Up here in Ontario a major retailer is the [insert company who has been in Canada for over 300 years], and this company hires some of the most blatantly conspicuous, poorly trained (at least this is my opinion) floorwalkers on the planet (you know: Middle of winter and the guy is walking around with a t-shirt, no cart or bags, always in the same area as you). While I hardly fit the profile of your average shoplifer, these stores are often so empty that these weenies have nothing better than to tail you around, and to say it's offensive is a gross understatement: On top of that it's especially funny knowing that the gross majority of retail theft is by the employees themselves.
        • I worked (past tense thankfully) at Staples a while back, and I'd like to correct this. Official company policy is to let the bastards run away, and just grab a licence plate/description of the person, and then let the police do their job. The explanation I got was that it was to prevent employees from playing hero and getting shot in the face or the like.

      • Re:there's always a deal to be found... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I always hated that warranty sales pitch at the end and always did my best to interrupt and decline before the sales slut could finish their first sentence. Then a couple of years ago my wife and I bought a vacum cleaner from them. She stopped me before I could interrupt and bought the warranty. I was so pissed about it we bitched back and forth the whole way home. Bottom line I was wrong.

        Since then she's returned that vacum cleaner 4 times for a new one. I mean it's insane. Every time it so much as makes a funny sound she's tossing it in her van and carting it back up there only to return 30 minutes later with another brand new one in the box. They don't even make the model we originally bought anymore. Now we are trading it out for a different, better model.

        Granted this wouldn't work with most of the stuff you buy there but for any kind of medium to small appliance that you might think stands a chance of crapping out on you within the three year warranty period I think it's a good idea.

        You think the sales people at Best Buy are clueless when you ask them a question about a product? You should see them in exchange mode.

        They don't even try to find out what's wrong with the extended warranty exchanges. The kid working at the returns counter is usually so busy listening to the line of people complaining about their problems he just says "go get another one and fill this out".

        • Sounds like the exact opposite of Future Shop. I bought a pretty decent two-line cordless phone (~$300), with the extended warranty (3 years). They only had the display model, but they said when the New Store Opened in four months, I could exchange it. New store opens, I take it in, and they said "Oh, we can't do that. Sorry." Portents of things to come.

          After about a year, the thing starting randomly dying, and consistently when the antenna was pushed in. Push it in, power goes off, pull it out, it powers up again. I took it back, and found out they had changed their policy - now they had to get it fixed 3 times before they'd exchange it. OK, so I put it in for repairs. They won't give me a spare phone, but they say that if I buy one I can take it back when my phone's ready.

          I bought the cheapest POS cordless they had (it sucked), and after two weeks, my phone's ready. I take it home, push in the antenna, and it dies. Next day, I take it back. The moron at the returns desk tries to convince me that it's something else - maybe the battery's dead. I tell her I don't think that's the problem, and she gets all huffy, and writes on the form "Customer claims it isn't the battery." Nice. So I get it "fixed" a second time. Get it home, and it worked for about 5 hours before it bombed out again. I didn't have time to screw around with it, so I just left it in the box for a while.

          Eventually, I get around to taking it back. Third time, no go, so I take it in for the last time. To be able to exchange it, you need the original receipt (which I had), the original box (beat up, but I had it), and every single return form from each attempted repair (which they never gave me). "Oh, I'm sorry, but we can't accept any returns without the repair forms." Great, except you have them. It wasn't even worth it to try and deal with these idiots, so I just left.
          I'll never shop at Future Shop again though.

      • They once offered me a $6 protection plan on a $3 calculator.

    • no need to run (Score:2, Informative)

      by emmons ( 94632 )
      Once you're out the doors with something from Best Buy, it's yours. It's corporate policy that the loss prevention folk (the guy in yello by the door who checks your bags) are not to chase after you. Reason being is a few years back an employee got shot while chasing a guy on foot. Your biggest worry is that if it's something expensive they will notify the police and give them a tape of you doing it.

      I once watched a security tape that was distributed to all the stores of a guy stealing a laptop. Plain as day, he walked up to the thing, unbolted the lock and walked out of the store with it. The salesmen are supposed to watch the notebooks a bit better now.

      • Re:no need to run (Score:3, Informative)

        by bwalling ( 195998 )
        You can't actually force someone to come back inside, anyway. Once they step off the curb, you can't keep them there. You can try to talk them into coming inside, or write down their license tag (if they're dumb enough to get in their car with you watching), but you can't make them go back in the store. Also, remember that they haven't actually stolen anything until they go through the door, even if they put something under their shirt.

        So, you have a short distance, from the door to the curb, in which to stop someone.

        When I worked at Target (way back in college), we used the walkie talkies to tell some employees to go stand right outside the door. That way, the person can't get away.

        • Re:no need to run (Score:2, Informative)

          by Account 10 ( 565119 )
          You can't actually force someone to come back inside, anyway

          Yes you can ... just arrest them [constitution.org]
          • I suppose you're right. Theft is not a felony until the amount totals $1000. Nothing in a Target (the place I used to work when we were told this) is worth $1000.
        • Look, laws are written so that if you put something under your shirt and even move towards the door, you are guilty of shoplifting. Period.

          I've watched a security guard run out the door, throw her badge at one kid, deck the other kid, and cuff them for grabbing some shoes and running. They weren't the only ones surprised.

          What you are repeating is simply a myth. Do you HONESTLY think that merchants would simply ignore a problem once someone 'makes it off the curb' ?

          Not only are you not a lawyer, you don't even bother to watch TLC or any other show that has even FEATURED stuff on shoplifting or other petty crimes.

          Wow. If ignorance is not only bliss, you must be *insert high object here*

  • Ebay (Score:5, Funny)

    by spookysuicide ( 560912 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:43PM (#3135628) Homepage
    I know this is a really obvious answer, but I've bought two used laptops from ebay, and got pretty great deals on both.

    Also they gave every 7th grader in maine an ibook this year, and those kids usually go down with one punch. :)

    • Also they gave every 7th grader in maine an ibook this year, and those kids usually go down with one punch. :)
      Yeah, but much like the Seinfeld Mother's day episode, most of us would blow the margin on the trip to Maine.
    • Also they gave every 7th grader in maine an ibook this year, and those kids usually go down with one punch. :)
      1) They're spacing out the laptops over a couple of years.
      2) 7th graders, up here, will take your ass out. You better have a gun. ;)
      3) Nice sig.

    • Re:Ebay (Score:2, Informative)

      by jalewis ( 85802 )
      Guess what? You will never hear the real story.

      There is a budget shortfall and guess what is getting slashed?

      That whole maine thing was a was for Apple to get lots of free press.

    • Re:Ebay (Score:2, Funny)

      by Jake96 ( 69645 )
      **
      Also they gave every 7th grader in maine an ibook this year, and those kids usually go down with one punch. :)
      **

      Thanks a lot, spooky. I just got my ass kicked by a 7th grader.
  • I think you can still find some pentium based laptops on ebay for around $200 or so. It's more than the $80 that you were talking about, but I think it's quite reasonable.

    For something like that, it's only really useful for terminal and low end word processing / browsing use, but that might be enough for you.

    I think the other thing is that people don't need to upgrade their laptops that much anymore either: most pII based laptops have enough to run the stuff that people want to run anyway. It might not be just that the upgrade cycles have gotten longer because of the economy.
    • Heh. This is actually pretty funny because when I was in college, I snagged an old 386 laptop off ebay that had windows 3.11 on it and best of all, MS Office.

      Now, since it was version 2.0 or something, it ran fine, and goddamn, I can tell you that physics class is a hell of a lot more fun when you've got a spreadsheet doing all those repetitive calculations for you! And of course, notetaking doesn't require horsepower, even if you're using MS Word 2.0.

      This guy probably already knows that if you want to use old hardware, you have to use old software too. Don't worry about him.
      • the worst thing about a physics (or any other science) lab course with a laptop and a spreadsheet is that you still have to maintain a lab notebook, so you have to write all that sh?t down anyhow.
        • the worst thing about a physics (or any other science) lab course with a laptop and a spreadsheet is that you still have to maintain a lab notebook, so you have to write all that sh?t down anyhow.

          Which just begs the question: "Why?" Is there any spectacularly good reason for putting any of this into actual handwriting with a pen? Why not just cut and paste it into word and do the write-up that way? Even better is that you can do your graphs in excel as well, inside of a few minutes.

          I may just have written it all down when I was in college too, (although if I recall correctly at least some of my labs were handed in fresh off a laser printer) but it just wouldn't be science if you didn't ask "why", now would it? :)

  • Etch-A-Sketch (Score:3, Funny)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:46PM (#3135636) Homepage
    Although it only comes with a basic drawing program and a monochrome screen, many can be found for less than $10. Also nobody at work has noticed that my PDA is really a Game Boy Advance.

  • 1/2.com, ebay, pcliquidators.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by AlaskanUnderachiever ( 561294 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:46PM (#3135637) Homepage
    I've found decent deals at all of the above. But ebay has to triumph them all if you've got patience and are willing to spend some time digging into it. Locally, if you're in a major city, check out the classifieds, local BBS, etc. Remember though, never be afraid to haggle, even with a store. I've gotten my price more often than not, and usually on a 1$=1Mhz basis. Remember though, a bargain is only a bargain if it does what you want it to do.

  • Truck Stops. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Latent IT ( 121513 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:49PM (#3135652)
    I kid you not. T&A (Don't mock the name!) travel centers sell low end laptops to truckers, and they also sell these internet access cards that allow them to check their e-mail and to basic web stuff at any of the other T&A truck stops. The card includes minutes, both for the internet access, and the cost of making the phone call from the truck stop, but the laptops they sell on the side, and I've seen them being sold from $100-$250.

    They're really the greatest places - you can also buy TV's that'll fit in your truck, portable fridges, and tv dinners in cardboard boxes that'll heat themselves up! (Sterno included.) Every time I'm driving cross country it's the only place I stop, and you know when you're getting close, because they advertise on CB channel 19. (Which isn't exactly legal, but hell, nobody cares, and truckers love 'em.)

    Oh yeah. They also have mechanics on duty, showers, 24 hour decent resturants, and all the jolt you could want.
    • Here [tatravelcenters.com] is a link -- they don't look that cheap.

      But next time I go by, I will have to stop for gator-fest [tatravelcenters.com]

      • I'm pretty sure those are the highest end laptops they'd be offering. I do know the last time I was there, they had some real cheapies. Maybe they're going high class like walmart. ;p
    • but the laptops they sell on the side, and I've seen them being sold from $100-$250.
      Hmmm. Could be stuff that fell from a truck...
  • One problem is people are keeping old notebooks longer. They may not run an app you need but they make great Internet terminals while sitting on the couch. My wife uses an old IBM 600E for Internet surfing. If she actually ran apps on it we would have sold it and upgraded ages ago, but there is no need.

    At work we've given some old notebooks to users for this very reason instead of selling them.

  • Low end laptops are tough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iPaul ( 559200 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:50PM (#3135659) Homepage

    That's nirvana - picking up a low-end laptop and running Linux on it. After all, Linux runs find on modest hardware. And, the latest laptops have all this freaky hardware which doesn't seem to want to run with Linux.

    The reality is that laptops aren't all that cheap. They have components (namely the battery) which tends to crap out fairly early in life. I've tried to do the same thing. Find a cheap laptop I can use (even if it's still plugged in) to do usefull stuff.

    Unfortunately I don't have a good answer for you. The prices for the used stuff aren't great. They have parts that are lighter and tend to break faster. They have slower bus speeds and clock speeds than desktops. They tend to take less ram (used may only accomodate 256 Meg), they have small, expensive drives, and both ram and drives are expensive to upgrade. They have very limitted resolution screens (especially used).

    If you need a box, I think you might be better served with used desktops on shear price. If you need the protability - I would look for a less expensive but new laptop. I don't think used saves you much when you look at what you're getting.

  • This looks like a WTB ad. Are we posting classified ads on /. now? Can I sell my used laptops and other gear? Wanna buy a firewall? How about my motorcycle?

  • Try pricewatch (Score:3, Informative)

    by Overcoat ( 522810 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:51PM (#3135666)
    Try digging around on mail-order hardware mecca pricewatch [pricewatch.com] under "not exactly new". There are some good deals to be found there.

  • Used? Maybe. New? Not hardly. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Demona ( 7994 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:52PM (#3135669) Homepage
    New laptops and notebooks are, almost without exception, composed strictly of gigahertz crotch warmers that barely have enough battery life to watch a complete movie with their built-in DVD drives. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing anymore as a small, efficient and portable computer which is also general purpose -- the only ones you will find that do so have their hardware, software or both severely limited in order to cut down on complexity and increase ease of use/reliability (like Tivo, and yeah, I'm aware Tivo isn't considered portable). There may be some specialized hardware available that does the trick and that just isn't marketed well enough that the world knows about it, but I think enough people want something like what you describe that it would be selling like mad if it actually existed.

    Your best bet at this point may be a handheld of some kind that can easily synchronize with whatever host OS's you'll be running without getting in your way or pissing you off; unfortunately, far too few user interfaces these days meet these criteria, but you may get lucky if you shop around. (I've heard great things about the Newton even allowing for the occasionally blinded enthusiasm of Apple owners, but I'd imagine that like the original Beboxes, very few people are willing to part with them.) My recommendation at this time would be to find something cheap that works, and use it as a stopgap while the marketplace continues to evolve. Monoculture has been the default for too long, and we're way overdue for an explosion of novelty.

    • As far as I can tell, there is no such thing anymore as a small, efficient and portable computer which is also general purpose -- the only ones you will find that do so have their hardware, software or both severely limited in order to cut down on complexity and increase ease of use/reliability (like Tivo, and yeah, I'm aware Tivo isn't considered portable).

      Actually, it does exists and it's called the iBook [apple.com]. It's small, doesn't get too hot, includes pretty much every port you'd ever need (USB, Firewire, VGA out (and AV out), ethernet, modem etc) and has a 6 hour battery life. Then there's the choice of DVD drive, CD burning or DVD reader/CD writer combo drive.

      Since this is an article about cheap computers, it should be noted that at least here in Australia you won't get a new laptop for much less than the iBook and if you do you compromise on features significantly. Since the reader is primarily looking at second hand systems this may not be an option for him, but it certainly should be a consideration for people considering a new laptop. Besides, Linux users love OS X [slashdot.org]. :)

      • Honest question: can the iBook run a Window applications at all competently? What sort of equivalent Intel CPU does it emulate?

        'Cause I'd do an iBook in a heartbeat, except that my key application is available only for Windows. :-(

        • Virtual PC (Score:3, Informative)

          by yerricde ( 125198 )

          can the iBook run a Window applications at all competently?

          Most Mac applications run in a window; very few run in the full screen, and they're mostly either media players or games. And if you meant Windows with an S (wouldn't that be Sindows?), Connectix Virtual PC [connectix.com] handles that quite nicely.

          What sort of equivalent Intel CPU does it emulate?

          Pentium MMX family. Clock speed may vary, but last time I checked, its video drivers were hardware accelerated. Windows 9x was highly responsive last time I tried VPC (on a 233 MHz original bondi blue iMac).

          I'd do an iBook in a heartbeat, except that my key application is available only for Windows.

          Which application is that? Have you used it in Virtual PC? (Used, not guessed.) And have you written the maintainer about the platform support issue?

          (Funny: Virtual PC is now available for Windows [connectix.com]. It's a vmware clone.)

          • Re:Virtual PC (Score:2, Insightful)

            by xonker ( 29382 )
            It's a vmware clone.

            Urrrr. No. VMWare is a Virtual PC clone, if anything. Virtual PC was around for quite a while before VMWare. Connectix was founded in 1988 and shipped Virtual PC in 1997. (Their first product was virtual memory...) VMWare, OTOH was founded in 1998 and shipped VMWare in 1999.

        • can the iBook run a Window applications at all competently? What sort of equivalent Intel CPU does it emulate?

          I would say that a computer without the ability to run a windows application is still better than windows running the same application. But that is just my Microsoft bashing opinion.

  • University Stores (Score:4, Informative)

    by aspjunkie ( 265714 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:54PM (#3135675) Homepage
    If you live near a university or college computer store, often times you can get a good deal on a laptop there, or else checkout some of the local, smaller dingy used computer stores While some of their laptops are often over-priced, a lot of them are quite reasonably priced, and haggling a little bit usually can't hurt.
    • Make a trip to your nearest University that gives laptops to all incoming freshmen. Find said freshman and exchange a keg for the laptop. You'll get a decent laptop for about $50.
  • Just checked out half.com for some deals on Thinkpads [half.com] (most Linux friendly laptops currently on the planet). A 760EL can be had for around US$215. That's a decent price for a machine for doing email and web browsing (if you're not in a hurry).
  • I ran into the same problem last year - I wanted something that I could take around with me, I didn't even care if it had a battery, AC power is fine as long as it had a NIC and large screen.

    I got lucky and found a off-name brand laptop (Eurocom [eurocom.ca], a Canadian company who sells high-end laptops to education/government types).

    Being a low-income student, I had two choices - a $300-400 pentium (P200ish) laptop with tiny screen or start up another loan and go for an off-lease $1000 machine that was far more than I needed. I feel your pain!

    I got lucky on eBay - found a Eurocom (14" TFT / 350MHz AMD / 128MB) and paid relatively little for it (similar laptops at the time were over $1000). Off-name laptops have been good to me - do a few searches before hand though, as there may be some problems with embedded sound/video cards and linux support. No problems for me though.

    The shameless plug: I lost my job recently and I had to choose between rent and selling the laptop. The upside is in a few months, I hope to have a better paying job (graduating in a month!) and will probably buy an off-name again. Maybe even new.

    The auction is up here [cgi.ebay.ca].

    Other tips: Buy a mini keyboard, optical mouse and a few other trinkets for it too - I tried for a while to use the original keyboard, but when surfaces are too high, it gets uncomfortable REAL quick. It's a little more hassle, but bending your wrists in awkward angles for a few hours at a time is *not* a good idea.

    A laptop would never replace my home machine but like my Palm VX, it complements wonderfully.

    Good luck!
    • that laptop is actually a sajer laptop. made by "wing-wang-wong" manufacturing in Korea/china for about 100 different remark-resellers.

      sajer laptops are the absolute best for running linux as being a generic product designed to be sold as a ba-jillion different company names they used standard items.

  • Laptop Server/Router (Score:3, Interesting)

    by strags ( 209606 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @04:55PM (#3135681)
    I have an old P100 that I got for $150 a year or so ago, from the local newspaper's classified ad section. I run Redhat 7.2 on it, and use it as a web server and NAT/firewall for my home LAN.

    The downside with this is that PCMCIA ethernet cards are more expensive. The big upside, however, is that a laptop will continue to run on its own batteries should the power go out. Furthermore, you don't need to drag over a monitor and keyboard if for some reason you want to log in from the console, as you would with a non-laptop headless server.

  • The reason is probably that people who got laptops way back when (when they were cheap) are hanging on cause they are most likely computer competent (or sold them to hackers). Thus those competent people are gonna hang onto it, put linux onto it and use it for fun stuff.
    If you're looking for laptops (old ones) there's a lot of Universities that sell the old ones that the profs have no use for. Check those out (huuuuugeeeee bargains, plus they'll have some interesting confidential information, if you're lucky).
  • I think the bad economy forced people to figure out that that hardware was undervalued. In particular if you are running Linux, a 200MHz laptop is a great machine for just about anything you might want to do.

    Where we really need improvements are with battery life and screens, and those are slow in coming along. There are some hard technological and design problems there (how do you fit a 17" screen into a 10" package without making your users look like the Borg?).

  • Obvious: Computer Stores (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nastard ( 124180 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @05:00PM (#3135710)
    A lot of non-mainstream mom-and-pop type computer stores keep old laptops around. I worked at a PC place in Denver for a while, and we had this huge stack of laptops and parts that were either given to us or left behind by their owners. I never got a chance to test them out, but the general concensus was that they were still functional.

  • I have one right here! I guess it has 33Mhz 486 (judging from the model-number) and color-screen (it says so next to the screen). It also has a built-in trackball. I'm still thinking that to do with it... In case you are wondering, it's AST Bravo 4/33s

    • Oh yeah? Well, I have a 386 monochrome laptop with 2MB of memory... and it's going in the trash this week.


      -m

  • Maybe not online? (Score:3)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @05:09PM (#3135747) Homepage Journal
    I know the obvious answer here are "Ebay" or "pricewatch" or whathaveye, but at the risk of bucking the trend, I've learned that the best deals now a days are comming more and more from simply having connections;

    An example is a Compaq Armada (7380DMT, if you care) I bought used a little under a year ago; It was at a local computer sotre where I know the owner, and she knew I was in the market for a new(er) laptop; At the time, these machines where going for $450 easy on Ebay, but since I was already ready to buy, she was willing to cut me a deal because I was a willing buyer -- she woudln't have to go to the trouble of listing and shipping, and so I got it for $150 off the ebay price, or $300.

    Now, I had to wait a few months in this scenario, and I really couldn't pick and choose, but since you're not wanting to spend much money, you probably don't care about picking and choosing anyway.

    The reason I pick on ebay is that since more and more people areusing it, prices are being driven up to teh point that it's not always the best deal anymore.
    • I've learned that the best deals now a days are comming more and more from simply having connections
      Damn straight. A friend of mine is giving me her brother's old Tandy Model 100 for free next time she visits her Mom's to get it. My Toshiba T3400 (486SX33 w/ 8MB RAM, 120MB HD and greyscale LCD) was also given to me by a friend. I pretty much use it as a portable Angband [angband.org] machine. By the way, I love old Toshiba laptops. These things are tanks. I "lost" this one two years ago when I moved, and just found it again about two months ago. It had been in my attic for two years, buried at the bottom of a box full of IBM Microchannel Token-Ring cards. Two years in an uninsulated attic in a city where the temperature ranges from sub-zero to ninety-plus, and I still get about 6 hours out of the battery.

  • Why low end? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Salamander ( 33735 ) <`jeff' `at' `pl.atyp.us'> on Saturday March 09, 2002 @05:21PM (#3135784) Homepage Journal

    I don't know about the real low end, but your $/MHz ratio certainly starts to break down even in the mid-range. I'm typing this on a laptop with a 600MHz CPU, that I just got from uBid for US$700 plus shipping, and I know that I could have gotten an even better $/MHz ratio with a bulkier machine. With that CPU and memory, USB, FireWire etc. this machine will still be viable a lot longer and ultimately provide more practical use per dollar than some low-end machine that's already at the end of its lifespan. Unless you're looking for something that will basically function as an embedded system (in which case you can skip the cost of a screen and get a true embedded SBC) I suggest you consider spending a little more to get a better overall value.

  • Buy your friend's "dead" laptop! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Glorat ( 414139 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @05:37PM (#3135859)
    I just had a brainwave. In the past, friends have come to me with their PC woes (I read slashdot right?) My cousin came to me with her dead laptop. It wouldn't boot up and in the end, she bought a brand new one and the old dead one she just left

    Why was her laptop dead? Well, hard drives in laptops die after 2-3 years typically in my experience. Your joe user see's the laptop die and goes to buy a new one since they are beyond warranty. However, techie you could take the laptop (offer money?) change the HD and voila! You have a cool 3yr old laptop to use as a router or firewall or something ;) Of course the warning is that at 3yrs old, don't trust the battery much... but you never know, it might run linux =P

    • Quality DOES matter. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bmw ( 115903 )
      What kind of drives were these? I'm sitting here right now with a Dell laptop that must be at least 5 years old and is still running strong with the original hard drive (IBM). It has changed owners a couple of times, has run a multitude of different operating systems, and was even a server that was up 24/7 for over a year. All with the original hardware. The hard drives in my desktop are also IBM and I have never had any problems whatsoever.

      I am not claiming that IBM has never made a faulty product, but this brings me to my main point. If you want reliability, stay away from the cutting-edge. I have found that if you always buy slightly behind the times (and research things a bit first, of course) that you can more often than not end up with quality products that will continue to work and be useful for years to come. Not to mention this approach is much cheaper, both in the short term and the long term.

      I also find it a bit unsettling that, in general, people consider computers that are only 3 years old to only be useful as routers, firewalls, etc. Especially taking into account some of the wonderful operating systems available that run beautifully on older, slower hardware. I have no doubt that this laptop would completely buckle under the weight of trying to run Windows 2000 or XP (or even applications like Mozilla), but are such things really necessary? Sure we have prettier GUIs, but has our ability to actually do work really improved that much? I am definitely not the norm, but I am perfectly happy and productive at a command-line interface with nothing but the tools that have been around for decades now. I'm well aware that everyone has their own needs, and that some people do indeed require very powerful systems. Still, I can't help but feel that there are a great number of people merely getting caught up in the glitter and glamour of new products. It just seems that an increasingly large part of the population is forgetting just how powerful this "old" hardware/software really is.

      I sincerely wish the best of luck to anyone seeking out old hardware/software. If only there were more like you out there. Just try to be wary of sacrificing quality (in new and old products alike) where sacrificing something like speed may suffice.

      P.S. My "old" laptop still runs a GUI just fine, it's just not my preference. :-)
      • Forgive me for stereotyping you in my mind when you said "I am perfectly happy and productive at a command-line interface". Well, I like 90% of the population and a happy Windows user. I shelled out money of my own pocket to buy Windows 2000 and it was worth it at the time. Once I started using 2000, there was no way I was gonna use Win98 on any machine I used so any old laptop I run would be forced to run Linux. Ok, the router bit was a joke but it was meant to highlight limitations

        You are right about the glamour of new products but MS play their cards well. I could make do with Win98 if that was all there was. But MS have done enough to make me want to get their latest and (not) greatest products sometimes.

        Or maybe I should resell the laptop to my uncle who only needs it for word processing. Hmm... that would work actually... The average Joe can get work done quite happilly on 3 yr old machines

  • The Real Problem With Cheap Laptops (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Saturday March 09, 2002 @05:38PM (#3135861) Homepage
    I've been able to get my hands on 3 or 4 old (486ish) laptops. I got them all for free, but I have one major problem with them: no (working) bateries. The odd thing is, they won't run off their AC adaptors, at least not without a working battery. So here I am, with 4 laptops that are more than enough for some of the things I'd like to use them for, and I'll have to fork out $400 +S&H to get a battery for each. I'm sure I could find many more laptops like these, for next to free if not actually free, but they are useless without forking out MAJOR cash.

    Besides that, I've seen MANY older laptops at used computer stores. But I agree that they cost WAY more than their worth. I've seen computers that wouldn't fetch $5 if they included a good monitor go for more than $200 just because they are laptops.

    P.S.
    Does anyone else miss the trackballs that old laptops used to have?

    • Re:The Real Problem With Cheap Laptops (Score:5, Interesting)

      by darkwiz ( 114416 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @06:15PM (#3135993)
      If you can't get the batteries cheap, refurbish the ones you have.

      Odds are that if you crack open the batteries, inside will be an array of standard or nearly standard NiMH or NiCad cells. Even if you have ones that look like elongated AA's, you can replace them with AA's and the machine should still work properly (charge, boot, etc), but the battery life will likely not be as long.

      Note: do NOT use NiMH batteries in a NiCad notebook unless the MFG supported those. The charging circuit will probably not properly recognize the full charge (delta V method).

      NiMH cells go for $2 a piece, and you should be able to get a working first try for less than $20.
      • Take the pack to a local battery specialty shop. If you can't find one, ask around anyone that uses a lot of portable radios (law enforcement, fire, power company, ham radio, scanner buffs, etc.) They'll know someone that refurbs battery packs.
    • and I'll have to fork out $400 +S&H to get a battery for each.

      Pry open the battery packs, and I'll bet you find a munch of C size rechargable cells. Replace and glue the battery pack shut.

  • http://www.toshibalaptops.com -- ask for Julia at x2134 if you call. These people have taken great care of me, and you can get great deals on refurb Dells that come in and Pentium era laptops can be had for $300.
  • But you might consider saving up some cash and getting one of these. [compaq.com] They start at $950, and you can get a very well equipped one for only about $1300. That's not a small amount of money, but it is certainly a excellent price/performance ratio.
  • i'm a bit confused by the given equation:

    $ = MHz * 2($/MHz)
    $ = 2*$*(MHz/MHz)
    $/$ = 2
    1 = 2

    am i misinterpreting it? if so, i'd appreciate a quick pointer to my mistake.

    • Re:fuzzy math (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by mikeage ( 119105 )
      No, no, no... that's not true.

      You were supposed to say as follows (since you obviously can't divide $ / $

      $/$ = 2
      $ = 2$
      0 = $

      i.e., they're free!
  • Nobody has mentioned this place yet, but I got a great 486 from them Retro Gear Store [retrogearstore.com]



    I dno't work for them

  • You want the laptop that I have sitting next to me? It is a CTX EZ Book complete with a 200 MHz Pentium Desktop processor. Yes, you read that correctly: desktop processor. It runs hot as can be and has no battery life to speak of, but my was it cheap to produce!

  • Evictions (Score:3, Funny)

    by zerOnIne ( 128186 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @06:39PM (#3136070) Homepage
    at least, that's how i got my laptop ... it's a p2/300 compaq armada 7400 that i payed $150 for ... my landlord evicted one of his other tenants for not paying rent for 4 months... this tenant promptly left the country with no forwarding information, and left a bunch of stuff in the apartment ... clothes, some dirty old dishes, and a perfectly good (albeit a little old) computer ... the landlord held the stuff for whatever time they're supposed to, and got no claim on it ... not wanting to throw out a computer, he came to us (i live with 3 other CS geeks), and i picked it up and gave her a home ... i've easily spent the original price again over in new parts (cdrom drive, keyboard), but little Lola's been good to me ... runs debian linux great, and can get close to 3 hours battery life if i'm careful... that is, in console mode running xemacs (which i use to take notes in class) w/o cdrom and nic plugged in... and by the way, does anyone know a good graphical equation editor in linux? it would've made taking notes in probability and physics much easier and more useful ...
    • Auctions are also a *Very* good place to get laptops. Usually you local university will have computer actions, and if you live in/close to your state capital they will also have auctions.

  • Really (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quintessent ( 197518 ) <my usr name on toofgiB [tod] moc> on Saturday March 09, 2002 @07:00PM (#3136141) Journal
    I remember the good old days, before everyone wanted a cell phone or PDA, back when you could buy a used laptop for $80 (USD).

    Ummm. I don't. I mean, I saw some that were ancient and many didn't work on dutch auction at e-bay. But I don't think there really was an $80 golden age.

    What I have seen, though:
    Before, your basic decent new TFT laptop started well over $1500. Now it's under $1000. I'm sure used prices will be dropping in kind, and I'm quite happy about it.

    Not to mention, for your $80 you can get a PDA that's faster and has more RAM than a high-end laptop from 10 years ago.

  • TigerDirect.com (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OrangeHairMan ( 560161 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @07:14PM (#3136201)
    TigerDirect.com [tigerdirect.com] has *a lot* of cheap parts and computers, and laptops. Enjoy.

    Orange
    • as a funny sidenote, I followed your link (who doesn't love cheap hardware??) While browsing the CPU section, I came across an AMD K6-2 450 with the little blurb next to it reading "One of the industries hottest processors..."
      Now THAT'S comedy!
      p.s. - I have a K6-2 450, and I love it...

  • It's still higher than the price range you wanted, but I picked up a refurbished blueberry ibook for $700. It was in good condition, other than a scratched up (but quite functional) trackpad, and runs Debian GNU/Linux perfectly.

    Seems like I remember a time when used laptops were dirt cheap, but I think I might have imagined it.

  • Affordable Portables (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jaysyn ( 203771 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @07:56PM (#3136338) Homepage Journal
    check out http://onlinelaptops.com/

    I've bought 3 used laptops from this store, for my office & have had good luck with them all. They are friendly & helpful when you have a problem, and all of the laptops come with a warranty. The batteries aren't usually warrantied though, which makes sense considering some of these laptops are 7-8 yrs old. I think they get them off lease from the military & large companies.

    Jaysyn

  • Megahertz Don't Matter... (Score:5, Informative)

    by omnirealm ( 244599 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @08:12PM (#3136365) Homepage

    ... when it comes to buying a used laptop. Your GHz machine will be of little use to you if there are dead pixels, sticky keys, bad batteries, malfunctioning drives and/or ports, etc.

    A few months ago, I picked up a used laptop from E-bay. It was from a reseller who purchased refurbished units from Dell which were on a corporate lease. There were tons of them selling at once, and I got a decent PIII for under $600. I was only moderately satisfied, as there were problems that couldn't be fixed (one of the PC-Card slots doesn't work and the left Ctrl key works only half the time, but the battery is still good). Some advice that I can offer from this experience includes:

    • Don't trust the warrantee. No matter how good it sounds on paper, they will probably do more damage to your laptop and return it to you in worse shape than it originally was in if you do send it in.
    • Don't be afraid to swap out parts yourself. Especially the keyboard. If you need to replace a broken part on your laptop, consider getting a "dead" model for less than $100 and using that for the parts.
    • Figure in the cost of a new battery when you browse for a new laptop. More often than not, the battery that comes with the laptop will be useless.
    • Ask specific questions about the laptop before buying it, like "Are there any dead pixels?", "Does the keyboard work perfectly?", "Do all the ports work?", "How long does the battery last?" The more questions the seller can't give definite answers on, the lower your offer should be for the laptop.
    • Make sure the vendor is reputable. If they have a fly-by-night Yahoo E-commerce deal going on, beware. If the company web site has a picture of a big building with the company name on it, it's probably safer than "some guy" selling his laptop.
  • why not pick up a Mako [yahoo.com] for 150, or a Clie with a keyboard and cord to connect to your cell?

    What do you really need to do on your machine that you can't do remotely on another one?
  • My dad bought a toshiba a few years ago from them, and just last week got a thinkpad 600e for $600.

    cheapist one: Compaq 120mmx/16ram/1.2g for $179

    http://www.truedataproducts.com/laptops.htm [truedataproducts.com]
  • Retrobox [retrobox.com] is a site that specializes in selling used equipment. Their prices are pretty good in general and sometimes you can find some really great deals.

    P.S. Click on the "Search" icon.

  • AlphaSmart for writing? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lumpish Scholar ( 17107 ) on Saturday March 09, 2002 @10:51PM (#3136709) Homepage Journal
    It's not a general purpose laptop (a Z80 likely will never run Linux!), but the AlphaSmart [alphasmart.com] "portable writing tool" (think TRS-80 Model 100 replacement but with a warantee, that looks to your system like a PS/2 keyboard or USB device for file upload/download) is about $200 U.S. and runs forever on AA batteries. A friend's son uses it for notetaking in class, and swears by it.
  • Real easy to come by, and cheap to! Word of advice tho - don't call the manufacturer for ANY reason, ok? They're, umm, special OEM deals.

    Here's the link:

    www.igotmylaptopoffthebackofatruck.com

    Enjoy!
    Derek

  • Handheld PC as a UNIX workstation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hackerb9 ( 7281 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @10:34AM (#3137754)
    Some of the Handheld PCs (which are supposed to run Windows CE) are actually very full featured in terms of hardware. WinCE is nearly useless, but if you install UNIX, you've just got a small laptop for a great price.

    I'm quite happy with a NEC MobilePro 800 [neccomp.com] I have. People come up to me when I'm using it and ask what it is and where they can get such a sweet looking sub-notebook. Most of them are sad when I tell them it won't run Microsoft Windows (it has a MIPS R4000 processor).

    However, if you're not shy about installing UNIX and compiling programs from source, you definitely want to check it out. All you'll need is a CompactFlash disk (I recommend the IBM 1GB Microdrive), so that you can fit your OS of choice. (I'm using NetBSD [netbsd.org], but I hear Linux works, too. NetBSD has a very nice package management system called pkgsrc [netbsd.org].)

    Don't get me wrong; a souped-up WinCE device is definitely not ideal for everyone. They're not fast and have miniscule memory, but they should be relatively cheap, even new. (There should be many good deals popping up now that Microsoft is discontinuing its MIPS port of WinCE). I know that Alan Computech has the MobilePro 880 for $490 new. I'm sure you can find much better if you look around.

    Here's the specs for the MobilePro 880 (which is slightly faster than the 800 which I have):

    • 168 MHz MIPS processor
    • 9.4" SVGA (64k colors) touch screen
    • 78-key keyboard with a comfortable 17.5mm keypitch
    • 32MB RAM
    • Type II CF slot
    • Type II PC Card slot


    The skinny: I'm very happy with my "laptop". Everything I want to run is open source, so I'm not tied to the x86 architecture.

    Ben

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