Dell Latitude E5430 refurb

[Darrell KSR]

I really need to replace my beat up old, broken down Inspiron E1505 that has 50gb of storage space, 2MB RAM that crashes about once every two days, that fails to recognize my mouse, that fails to recognize my fujitscu Scansnap half the time, and causes me untold hours of angst rebooting, reinstalling software, etc.

Knowing my needs are minimal--word processing, quickbooks pro, basic tax software and email/web-surfing, does this Latitude look like a good deal? My son was trying to talk me into buying on old Latitude for about $200 and buying a 128gb SSD to install in it, but this sounds like a better solution for not much more price.

http://www.woot.com/offers/dell-latitude-14-core-i3-laptop-w-ssd

By the way, that $400 is about all I'll spend on this. I have three laptops, including the Acer notebook, and it's hard to justify another one at more than that anyway.

[Catonahottinroof]

Well, have you ever considered one of the open source Linux distributions for your laptop?

[Darrell KSR]

No idea what that means exactly, but son said this was a good computer for me, so bought it. Price seemed reasonable, and it fit my style...small desktop, basically...very little movement, but capable if needed.

Sent using Forum Runner. All typos excused.

[Catonahottinroof]

Older laptops run well on Linux as opposed to some MS Windows variant.

[KSRdallen]

Limited experience with Linux but all positive.

[PedroDaGr8]

Are you guys REALLY suggesting Linux for D? Srsly?

If Cit or myself don't shoot you, ladycat will. Yes Linux is a great operatings system (I use it regularly). Yes there are a variety of pseudo-noob friendly dsitros out there. The problem is everything else besides the operating system (drivers, software, etc.) You are asking big D to learn it all over again. This is a man who screwed up a palm pilot.

@bigD - that's not a bad combined price. Personally though i'd buy the ssd separately (OEM SSDs tend to be much slower) and get something in the $300 range.

For example:
http://outlet.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/outlet_us/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:item.detail?GroupID=445&Code=4375XB2 ~$325
then add a 128gb ssd for around $100

[Darrell KSR]

Well, my son is here at home now, and he cleans hard drives, puts Linux on his system, removes hard drives and puts in SSDs, etc., so at least I have something to fall back on.

It is being delivered tomorrow; I went ahead and bought it, path of least resistance, huge improvement over what I have now, etc.

Pedro, the one you linked also lacks an optical drive, too. I do have an external usb one I could use, but I like having it in it for convenience.

Sent using Forum Runner. All typos excused.

[Darrell KSR]

Oh..and I appreciate you watching my back for the Linux thing. It's one thing to suggest putting in a SSD, knowing my son could do it for me, and yet another for suggesting an operating system I would have to live with daily. ;)

Sent using Forum Runner. All typos excused.

[Darrell KSR]

Well, it arrived today. I'm perturbed.

Computer looks spotless. Pristine, clean. Like it's never been used. Boots up quickly, wireless connectivity is terrific, keyboard, monitor, everything just shines.

But no optical drive. There's a space for it, but no optical drive.

I received an email earlier this morning that Woot had refunded $30 to me. No explanation, just went to my PayPal account. A follow-up email later said this:

So, here's the thing. We made a little mistake in the specs for your Dell Latitude E5430 we sold about a week ago. Yeah, that one. The one that we said had an optical drive. The one that ACTUALLY had an inactive space filler where the optical drive SHOULD have been. That's our bad, and we feel really dumb about it, which means there's only one thing to do: beg you to forgive us.

The first half of that begging: a small refund. We're gonna give you $30 back, right now, applied to your credit card or whatever you used to make the purchase. Do nothing, it's on the way! But if you still feel betrayed… well, we've got a solution for that too.

If you want to return the laptop and get the rest of your money, just give us a shout! We'll send you a return label so you can return it at our expense. And you'll still get that $30 refund right now, like everybody else, but you'll also get the remainder of your refund just as soon as our wayward laptop comes home. A refund in full. Make sense?

And let us just say right now: we're sorry. And we hope to do better by you next time.

Sheepishly,
Woot.com

So....it was $369 instead of $399, but no optical drive.

What do you think?

[Catonahottinroof]

A bait and switch scenario.....counselor... Can you make yourself whole to the advertisement for the $30 kickback?

[Darrell KSR]

I don't think I can.

Sent using Forum Runner. All typos excused.