Refurbished laptop recommendations... help!

RainbowsInTheSpray

Could anyone take pity on a non-tech lady? Looking to buy a refurbished laptop from ebay for wi-fi use in the home (where else, at the moment?!) and have no idea about decent makes/models. Modest use only but I do want something reasonable. A pointer as to said makes/models to look out for would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Frozen_up_north

You don’t mention how much you would like to spend. There are some high specification ex office/business laptops from refurbishers on eBay, such as this Lenovo item number 323095101188.

However, refurbished laptops rarely include a new battery, if a long run time on battery power is important factor in the extra cost of a replacement battery too.

In general, avoid any laptop with a hard disk drive (HDD), they are slow to boot up. More recent laptops all use solid state drives (SSD) which cost no more than their spinning disk cousins but are much faster. Also avoid anything with a Celeron, Pentium, or “dual core” processor... they are old and sluggish.

A typical, half decent, new business/home office/school work laptop costs around £500.  Minimum spec typically has an Intel i5 (or AMD equivalent) processor, 8GB ram, 256GB SSD, 15.6” screen and runs up to 6 (or more) hours on battery. The more recent ones are slim and lightweight too, although that comes at the loss of a quickly swapped battery in many cases. You also might need an external USB powered CD/DVD writer/reader... cost only around £12 ~ £20 on eBay. Most recent laptops do not include a CD/DVD drive.

As always, buyer beware. Look for company sales with good feedback and a warranty, as opposed to an individual seller. Also check non eBay places such as eBuyer who sometimes offer ex demo stock at good prices.

Brand wise, take your pick, Dell, Lenovo and HP are the main ex business laptops. I bought a Dell desktop from an eBay refurb company and it is great. I also bought an Asus Vivobook from Amazon in a sale last year, it was new and around £100 cheaper than anywhere else. Even though many home workers and students have been buying up stock, there are a lot of laptops around.

Neil49

The Argos eBay site is back up and running again but with a limited range of items. 

The good news is that they have quite a good selection of refurbished laptops available at the moment. I've purchased a couple of of refurbished laptops from them in the past and been very impressed. 

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

Take a look and come back if you need further advice. 

tacpot12

Lenovo, HP, and Dell are three manufacturers whose business laptops are usually of good quality. Beware of buying laptops aimed at consumers second-hand as they tend to be more flimsy.  Acer and ASUS laptops are aimed only at consumers and hence I would recommend you steer clear of them - unless you know the owner personally as being a careful person. Acer and ASUS laptops will also have cost les to buy in the first place so they are a little cheaper.

I would look for something with a Core i5 Processor, 4 to 8 B of RAM and an SSD. 

We've just bought a HP Probook G6 440 for our son who we are hoping will be at University from September. Cost was £706. (Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD)

stragglebod

I've noticed the prices of refurbished business laptops on ebay have gone up quite a bit over the last few weeks, and there are fewer top grade condition ones as people snap them up for home working. You should be able to get a decent spec Lenovo Thinkpad in nice condition for around £200 though. After lockdown ends its possible that many of the specially purchased laptops might return back to the refurbished market, so there may be some good as new bargains to be had.

RainbowsInTheSpray

Thanks very much for the useful thoughts.