Low-end Laptops?

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?"

Comments

Swap meets.

[saintlupus]

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

Re:Swap meets.

[Greyfox]

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.

1/2.com, ebay, pcliquidators.com

[AlaskanUnderachiever]

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.

Try pricewatch

[Overcoat]

Try digging around on mail-order hardware mecca pricewatch under "not exactly new". There are some good deals to be found there.

Used? Maybe. New? Not hardly.

[Demona]

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.

Re:Used? Maybe. New? Not hardly.

[TheAJofOZ]

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. 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. :)

University Stores

[aspjunkie]

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.

Auctions..

[d.valued]

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.

Virtual PC

[yerricde]

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 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. It's a vmware clone.)

Re:no need to run

[bwalling]

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.

Affordable Portables

[Jaysyn]

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...

[omnirealm]

... 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.

Awesome used laptop site.

[joestump98]

http://www.acinc.com

AlphaSmart for writing?

[Lumpish Scholar]

It's not a general purpose laptop (a Z80 likely will never run Linux!), but the AlphaSmart "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.