Considering buying refurbed PC from Amazon 24 February at 11:09PM in Techie Stuff 10 replies 401 views

Blackavar

Hi
My old Windows XP mini tower has done it's job but the OS is preventing access to sites I need, so time to replace.
All the everyday stuff is done on via tablet or phone and mainly use the PC for photo enhancement and storage. I appreciate I will lose some of my fave old apps like Picassa but will move to Google I think. Anyway, I wondered if anyone had any experience with buying a refurbished PC from Amazon (or their Marketplace) as these seem reasonably priced and I don't need anything fancy? The reviews are very mixed so I'm undecided. TIA for any input. (ha, for example I can't Preview with XP)

km1500

I would not buy from Amazon Marketplace it is  nest of vipers (if you do, make sure it is a UK company). Amazon itself is fine.

What is your budget?

outtatune

I've bought several refurbished laptops from ebay - sellers who buy a bulk lot of computers from businesses who are upgrading, refurb them and sell them on. And never had any issues. Obviously look for sellers with high feedback scores. You can't go too far wrong with a refurbished Lenovo.

DCFC79

OP have you considered ebay ?
I bought a refurbed Dell, i wouldnt know it was previously used, the case looked mint. I can see who i bought from if you like.

I cant comment about buying from Amazon, I chose ebay as I've seen posters on here and on hukd when pcs get posted say they bought from ebay.

forgotmyname

I have looked at some recently and as mentioned it is a minefield.  Sellers with Windows 10 and Windows 11 on machines
that probably had XP on them originally.  They are likely to be slow and in the case of the Windows 11 machines they will
have had their registry tweaked because they do not have the security than Windows 11 requires.

Think what did they do to bypass the security check and did they tweak anything else. If you do get one make sure you
wipe it and do a fresh install of windows.

facade

Try something like this Dell 5050 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404176765492

Unfortunately it won't run windows 11 (you can force an install...), so it has a limited lifespan, but you shouldn't be paying more than £50 + post, and they are a bargain.

2 displayports + HDMI, takes an nvme m2 drive, the caddy is for a 2.5" hard drive/

Otherwise a Vostro 3470, but you will be lucky to get a decent spec. for under £100- make sure it has the wireless card, an ssd, a harddrive caddy at least 8gb ram and an i3-8100 if you want to run win 11.

Dell fully support these machines, you can get restore images, all the manuals and drivers from Dell, and if you install the Dell software, they update themselves.

The only things to watch is that wireless and vga graphics ports were optional.

They were available as mini-towers, which will hold more 3.5" drives and take better graphics cards, but they are much rarer as disposal stock.

or you can go for the micro form factor optiplex 3060, but these go for over £100, as everyone wants them as media pcs for under the TV

You want an 8000 or 9000 series processor to run win 11.

Cisco001

Best to go to ebay or CEX.
Amazon market place usually overprice used PC from memory.

What is your budget?

frugalmacdugal

Hi,

maybe stick in an SSD and upgrade to Win10.

Newcad

How handy are you?

Last year I took an old 32-bit XP-Pro laptop, added some more RAM to get it up to 4GB, swapped the old spinning drive to a 250 GB SSD, then installed 64-bit Windows 10 on it.

Both of those upgrades are pretty simple to do on most computers.

It cost me just over £50 for the RAM and the SSD, and it is now running Win10 22H2 with no problems and at a decent speed.

(The Windows 10 is not activated, a Win 10 licence would cost more than that machine is worth. Running unactivated Windows is quite legal, there are a few restirctions on customising themes, etc. but it works generally the same as activated Windows. It even has a Microsoft account associated with that machine).

getmore4less

CEX has some very good nearly new still in warranty with easy returns if you have a local store.

Just check you can get into the bios as some machines can be totally locked down.

Blackavar

Thanks to all for very helpful input. Considered Amazon due to easy return policy. Looking at eBay I can see a lot of ideal candidates with great feedback so will probably use this route. Thanks again for input.