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View Full Version : Buying a Refurbished/Used Thinkpad Online



Redalien0304
February 13th, 2016, 11:56 PM
Looking to Buy Refurbished/Used Thinkpad from Reputable Website?? Have Looked at Amazon, Ebay,& http://www.laptopcloseout.com/
Also have looked Locally at a few places. Anyone Bought any online with good Success & Reviews? Have been looking at Laptopcloseout they seem to to have good Reviews when i Google them. If anyone has any Suggestions please let me know Thanks.

Any Info W​elcome & Thanks

sudodus
February 14th, 2016, 08:05 AM
I have good experience from buying refurbished enterprise class computers for my family and friends, but in another continent (Europe). One of these companies has a one-year guarantee, that the computer should work. In 2 cases of totally around 10 (3 Thinkpads), there were problems, that could be fixed, so I think those companies are reliable.

- one HDD had bad sectors, and they sent a new one.

- one Windows system's graphics was failing. The computer was returned and fixed. They said it was a software problem.

All these (around ten) computers have worked well with linux.

-o-

Find companies in your country that refurbish computers from companies and other organisations.

Laptop Closeout seems to have various length of guarantees for different classes of computers: I found 3 months, 6 months and 1 year. Three months is probably enough to detect hardware problems with a computer. (If it works when you get it, it will probably continue to work until it is too old to run a modern operating system and browse a modern and bloated internet ;-) But of course, if you have bad luck, something might stop working the day after the guarantee expires.)

If you cannot find a company that looks better, I think you can buy from this company. If you are not sure, maybe you should buy a rather cheap model.

mcgess
February 14th, 2016, 09:05 AM
I'm UK based, in 2013 I bought a Thinkpad T61 from a UK retailer through Amazon and I'm really pleased with it. Everything works, no worn keys or scratches and the battery was in good condition as well. The hard disk (with XP & Ubuntu) does still work but I replaced it with an SSD last year anyway. Now got Ubuntu & Haiku installed. Still pleased with it but when eventually it is no longer usable I will happily buy another second hand laptop online.

Martin

Bucky Ball
February 14th, 2016, 09:14 AM
Thread moved to the Cafe.

kurt18947
February 14th, 2016, 12:39 PM
I've bought 3 laptops (ThinkPads) off Ebay and had no major issues. The one I'm typing this on was one and it did have an issue (fan failed message) but a few minutes on Google produced a fix - very quick shot of compressed air in the heat sink plumbing. Be sure there's a reasonable return time. My local Craigslist also has a guy that always has laptops for sale so I suspect he buys off-lease laptops, cleans them up, replaces hard drives if necessary and resells them. Buying a machine without a hard drives presents an opportunity - factor a nice SSD into the price

I prefer brands that post hardware manuals online. If I do have a component failure down the road it's nice to know how to remove and replace. It seems there's always a screw or clip where I least expect it. Youtube is another resource but I prefer official and printed given the choice.

steeldriver
February 14th, 2016, 02:45 PM
Where are you located? In US/Canada, you can buy refurbs (usually off-lease I think) from IBM

http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/content/home/store_icueb2b/en_CA/pshp.html

I'm on my 4th (going right back to an old X30 that I sometimes still fire up)

stalkingwolf
February 14th, 2016, 02:55 PM
Blair Technology Group. They sell on ebay and have a website.

Redalien0304
February 14th, 2016, 04:57 PM
I am in the US. I have bought one Laptop online once from Amazon. A Dell Latitude D630 Lasted for 6 months only. The Nvidia Graphics failed on it.

chili555
February 14th, 2016, 05:52 PM
I just bought a refurb T440p here: http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/laptops/#facet-1=2,3,4&facet-3=14

It looks and operates as new.

Redalien0304
February 17th, 2016, 05:37 PM
Bump Anyone?