Are Refurbished Laptops Safe?

EveryWhere

BSR8888 wrote: »

Thank you, good advice.

Excuse my ignorance but... what is a "solid state drive". Further to that, if HP are not appropriate which might be the best manufacturer for "thickos" (and I know I am) like me?

At the moment I am using a Dell Latitude E7470 but I have to give this back to the company I have just left and, from what I have searched, these are rather expensive for me to buy even 2nd hand. I guess I have been spoilt for years as I just accepted what the company has given and handed to the IT team when in trouble. The last time I bought my own laptop was about 15 years ago and it was rather expensive (£1500 from Dell) ... those were the days when I had money

Dell Latitude E7450 with a Full HD screen and SSD fitted is within your budget.
Example: https://www.blackmoreit.com/e7450256gb-ssd-dell-latitude-e7450-core-i5-5300u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-14-display-windows-10.html

or E7440 with Full HD Touchscreen; https://www.blackmoreit.com/e7440touch-dell-latitude-e7440-laptop-core-i5-4300u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-14-touchscreen-win10.html

Solid state drives have no moving parts and are much more efficient than their electro-magnetic counterparts.

EveryWhere

Dell Latitude E7470 too; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Latitude-E7470-i5-2-3Ghz-6th-Gen-CPU-256GB-SSD-14-Win10-Pro/333296338995

Though that one from a private seller, so no warranty.

Owain_Moneysaver

BSR8888 wrote: »

Excuse my ignorance but... what is a "solid state drive".

A 'hard drive' that uses memory chips (like a USB memory card) instead of a platter of spinning rust.

SSDs are faster than hard drives, completely silent, and particularly good for laptops because they don't get damaged if they get knocked.

Unfortunately they usually come in smaller sizes (although 128 GB is adequate for Windows, office suite and ordinary data but won't cope with tons of stored video) and they may not last as long as hard disks.

EveryWhere

You can also bid for an E7470; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-E7470-I7-6600U-2-60GHZ-8G-16G-RAM-256GB-SSD-WIN10/333296058488

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-LATITUDE-E7470-ULTRABOOK-14-CORE-I7-6650U-16GB-RAM-256GB-SSD-FHD-14/333296809553

Very good spec. You can just put in your max bid and leave it at that. Though again, no warranty with those.

that

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

...and they may not last as long as hard disks.

I thought that too, but some one a few years ago on here pointed out that this was no longer the case. I did some research after and found he as right.

seatbeltnoob

that wrote: »

you also have to watch out about paying money for old rope. This one above is an example (definitely not a recommendation), they want £10 extra for windows 10. (1) the windows 7 to 10 serial number works, so you can install it yourself (2) 10 is probably an easier install, but there is not much in it. so it is a waste of £10

The first things to do when you get a second hand PC is to check the screen, all they keys work, run disk checks and disk benchmarks (not chkdsk) (if rust spinner - easy for the seller to give you a disk on the way out), and memory check, the do the CPU checks and benchamarking and keep an eye on the temps - that fan, it turns? Usb ports loose/ not connection? Power socket wiggly? PSU cable looks ok? All basic stuff. Then the more advanced stuff: is the bios passworded? is the disk in the bios passworded? Do all the bios passwords work? Often there is a an error log in the bios - read it and note how often it failed and what it failed on. Look at windows event eventviewer > Windows Logs > System

Thats very thorough, i think its a good idea to do this. The bios password thing, i bought a dell e6230 from gumtree. Guy sold tonne of it stuff because hes relocating to australia. The bios was locked. Luckily dell support gave me the bios password when i phoned, i thought id get stuck in a beauracratic quagmire where they needed proof of ownership. They just gave it to me without asking anything. I could have been the thief who stole it.

Neil49

I've purchased a couple of refurbished laptops from the Argos eBay site and both have been fine, in fact one looked to be brand new.

http://www.ebaystores.co.uk/Argos

EveryWhere

Neil49 wrote: »

I've purchased a couple of refurbished laptops from the Argos eBay site and both have been fine, in fact one looked to be brand new.

http://www.ebaystores.co.uk/Argos

The issue with those, is that SSD are not the norm.

Notwithstanding, I would choose this ACER Aspire A315-41-R3FT; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acer-Aspire-3-15-6-Inch-Ryzen-3-2200U-2-5GHz-4GB-1TB-HDD-Laptop-Black-/362545893436 over the HP 15-bw060sa any day.

Even though they are at a similar price point, the ACER has a much better processor;





But just as important, it makes it infinitely more easy to swap the slow HDD for a fast SSD, since it has a dedicated hatch for the HDD. So the swap can take place in a mere five minutes.

In addition to that, if one can be bothered to remove the underside, you can also add an M.2 SATA 3 SSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S9BIghFnU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S9BIghFnU

Of course no match for the quality of the Latitudes, but they will likely be in 'As new' condition.

Tesco Outlet has the same model; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acer-Aspire-3-A315-41-R3FT-15-6-Laptop-Ryzen-3-2200U-4GB-1TB-BullGuard-/352648122010

It doesn't look like it's an IPS screen.

brianposter

I am perfectly happy with my £60 second-hand laptop from Encore. Presumably the battery will not last as if it were new but otherwise I would not notice the difference.

EveryWhere

Here's another consumer quality laptop, this time with an IPS screen; https://mcscom.co.uk/product/dell-inspiron-15-5580-silver-i3-8145u-2-10ghz-4gb-128gb-ssd-1tb-geforce-mx150-15-6-fhd-win-10-1yr-rtb-wty-mln664/ slightly over your budget.

None are specific recommendations. Just food for thought.
Though I would choose it over the HP and ACER.