Any recommendations on inexpensive refurb laptop?

[Darrell KSR]

Wondering if there's a decent deal out there from NewEgg or someplace for a laptop in the $200-250 range. Maybe $300.

Rather it be a decent laptop, but refurbished, over a cheap laptop that's new. For my son. Trying to buy something quickly. (His laptop died, claims it's the motherboard and something else, but "he has a guy" that will work on it, in due time, and probably resurrect it, but it may take weeks. He needs something pronto, and something decent because he's taking a couple of computer classes.)

Any suggestions appreciated. Will probably get expedited shipping on something, so (I am biting my lip to say this), I'd also welcome in store options at places like Best Buy, if there's something decent that fits that description, too.

[KSRBEvans]

Newegg would be the 1st place I'd look, too.

Dell Outlet?

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2201&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

[dan_bgblue]

Google shopping has many offerings

[PedroDaGr8]

Cowboom it's the open box/scratch and dent/refurb/resell division of best buy. You can sometimes find great deals. Keep an eye on the condition score.

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[Darrell KSR]

Ooh, good suggestions, thanks.

[CitizenBBN]

Darrell what are the minimum specs? I'd drop one in the mail to you but I'm afraid what I have left may not be up to spec. I had to get a 2nd hand one to be my new primary b/c I was having so much trouble getting some apps to work on the old one, and it's my newest one and even this one is too slow comparatively.

[Darrell KSR]

That's ok, CBBN. I appreciate the offer. I don't know exactly; I am hoping to talk to him this afternoon after he gets out of classes to see exactly and go over some of these options. From what I can tell, you can get a decent amount of laptop for $300 or less on those refurbished deals, so I'm ok with that.

[Darrell KSR]

Think he is getting some sort of Asus for $260. He has Ram already where he can upgrade it to 8gb, and it has an available space to upgrade the storage where he can put his SSD. No optical drive, but that doesn't seem to bother him. Newegg.

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[PedroDaGr8]

Think he is getting some sort of Asus for $260. He has Ram already where he can upgrade it to 8gb, and it has an available space to upgrade the storage where he can put his SSD. No optical drive, but that doesn't seem to bother him. Newegg.

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I would not miss my optical drive at all. I have one on my laptop I got last year, I have used it ZERO times. Very soon the optical drive will go the way of the floppy. VERY VERY soon. Cloud storage and cheap to the point of almost being disposable multi-GB USB drives have negated the purpose of an optical drive. If you NEED one, a USB one will serve for the 1-2 times a yearthe average user would use it.

[Darrell KSR]

That's basically what he said. I have an external drive I use with my Acer notebook, and another external drive laying around, and he says if he needs to burn a CD, that's what he'll do.

I use it pretty much only to burn DVDs of home movies now. I do a bunch of that, but it's a one-trick pony. For his use, I can certainly understand.

[KSRBEvans]

I still use an optical drive to rip CDs and DVDs, but that's it. I might use it once every month or so.

[Darrell KSR]

I guess you guys are right. I remember when I bought that Dell Latitude with the 128gb SSD in it, and slick specs for $399 (refurb) but it did not have the optical drive, and their offer to refund $30 of it did not make me happy. Now I kinda wish I had kept it.

I think he did OK. The Asus he got is from Newegg itself, which I like.

Specs:
Intel Pentium B980(2.4GHz)
4GB Memory 500GB HDD [He will upgrade to 8GB memory for free & add a 64gb SSD for free, too.)
Intel HD Graphics
1366 x 768
Windows 8

Price was $274.99, but he got $15 off for some reason, to $259.99. Then he got free two-day shipping.

I'm pleased if he's fine with no optical drive. We have a desktop, my laptop, and an external drive that have optical drive capabilities if he needs them.

I guess I'm just going the way of the dodo bird. I wasn't ready to give up 8-tracks, either. :) (I lobbed a softball for BBB for a classic old joke).

[PedroDaGr8]

I have to say I have been happy with my Asus, as has my wife with hers. My wife's Asus is a work of art, albeit pricey but worth it. She was trying to decide between a MacBook Air and one of the top-of-the-line Asus Zenbooks (uv32vd-DH71). As those two met her feature requirements and fit the style she liked. In the end the Asus won out because it had better overall features (including a better screen than the MacBook Air) at a slightly cheaper price point. I must say though after she received it, I was AMAZED at how much thought went into the design of this laptop/ultrabook. It's one of the thinnest and lightest out there but unlike the MacBook air is incredibly simple to upgrade or repair. iFixit gave it an 8 out of 10 rating for repairability (the MBA got a 4 out of 10). For example, the bottom is held on with 12 T5 Torx screws. No proprietary screws, no glue, no clips. Just plain old screws. Plus, it has upgradeable RAM (2GB is permanent but there is also a single slot to allow you to expand it yourself), a standard laptop hard drive (which can be replaced with most aftermarket SSDs or HDD as its not proprietary) and a replaceable wifi card. All of this in an ultrabook package, where supposedly you can't upgrade anything.

[Darrell KSR]

He's had it a few days now, and really enjoying it. Has all his "stuff" on it, and it is zippy, even though he has not yet upgraded the RAM from 4gb to 8gb. Looks like it would be very suitable in an office setting to me.

[PedroDaGr8]

Just realized I forgot to post a link to the teardown I mentioned:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Asus+Zenbook+UX32VD+Teardown/10120/1

[Darrell KSR]

I enjoyed reading that, Pedro. I am now pumped for doing the same thing. If an ultrabook can be done that way, my easy-to-repair laptops ought to be a piece of cake, right?

Mint chocolate chip DQ blizzard cake, preferably. :)

[KeithKSR]

We've been opting to repair/upgrade our laptops for the last few years. Speeds really haven't increased much. We upgraded an old Dell last spring we hadn't been using from Vista to Windows 7, upgraded graphics and RAM. Spent about $100 on the upgrades. We had an HP that the motherboard went bad on, it's now a donor machine that will help keep others plugging along.

[Darrell KSR]

Daughter just bought the same Asus laptop. Found a $25 off coupon, too.

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