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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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.