Tips for finding cheap laptops
Being a tech for over a decade has taught me many things. One of those things is that you no longer need to pay $1000 or $2000 to get a good laptop. Maybe 10 years ago but not now. Technology is moving so fast that it seems like we'll never catch it. What I mean is there are laptops now that are 3 or 4 years old which our operating systems still haven't taken full advantage of. How long has Windows looked the same? Get my point?
Buying a premium laptop now may get you things like Bluetooth 2.0, finger print scanners, Blu-ray players, built in web cams. Things which sound cool but aren't exactly a necessity. For most people, if the laptop has a screen, a keyboard and the internet to check email and surf, that's good enough. Throw in a word processor and iTunes and call it a day. Most warranties run out before something breaks and laptops are so expensive to fix, you might as well get another one when the old one breaks down. I'm sure that's happened to many of you before!
That's why I've made this site, to help people find good laptops with all the necessities without the huge price tag.
Most of the laptops displayed on this page are $350 or under and the main focus is on business laptops. Why business laptops? Most business laptops are leased out to corporations in large quantities and then returned 2-3 years later. During that lease, the laptops are under warranty. What that equals are extremely large quantities of laptops which are usually fully paid for already (by the lease), fixed up (because of the warranty) and that can't be resold (by HP, Dell, Acer, etc) because they're used. The giant corporations with no where to put these millions of laptops sell these off to 3rd parties for next to nothing who turn around and sell these to consumers, primarily on eBay to turn whatever profit they can.
Business laptops are generally built better from the factory for a few reasons. 1 is less support is needed over the length of the contract making it cheaper in the long run to put premium parts in from the start. 2 is these lease contracts are worth billions. If Dell gives a corporation a million of laptops that fall apart and fail on user's, do you think that same corporation is going to give Dell their next billion dollar lease?
So this site highlights many of the more popular business model laptops on sale on eBay. Here are a couple of things to look for:
1. Make sure you read through the auction details and there is nothing about the laptop needing repairs. If the laptop is broken, the seller has to state that otherwise its an automatic refund.
2. Check to see if sellers offer DOA insurance or a DOA warranty. DOA meaning "Dead on Arrival". If the laptop gets to your house and won't boot, automatic refund.
3. This should be a given but don't buy from sellers with no feedback! If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is! There are hundreds of high quality Power Sellers on eBay who sell laptops. eBay's feedback system is there for a reason! Check the selling history, if they check out, chances are you're going to get a good machine.
4. Warranties, a small percent of sellers will offer a warranty for 14 days to 30 days where if something fails within that period, they'll ship you a new computer. Not 100% necessary but a nice added bonus if you see it.
5. Buy laptops that are guaranteed by the seller. Guaranteed to work on arrival. Because if something does fail and it was guaranteed not to, its real easy to reference the auction and get all your money back no questions asked. Most sellers would rather replace 1 computer then lose 100 sales because of bad feedback.
6. Unless you know how to fix computers, don't buy items listed as "untested" or "as-is". In my experience, its 50/50 to whether you're going to get a good or bad laptop. Like I said before, there are thousands of good power sellers selling guaranteed laptops. Stick with them.
Thats really about it. I hope I didn't scare anyone away from buying a laptop with my list. Really it all comes down to common sense. Stick with these rules and you'll be fine. If you're really that paranoid about it, buy one in a store or from one of our "Trusted Merchants" OR pay using Paypal and a valid credit card. That's the safest thing you can do when buying anything on eBay or anything online for that matter. Thats 2 companies on your side. If Paypal doesn't get your money back, Visa, Mastercard or whoever surely will. I've purchased over 500 laptops on eBay in the last 2 years. I usually sell them on Craigslist. Only once did I have to open a Paypal dispute (which I won) and that was from a seller who only had 26 feedback so I'll take the rap for that one. Happy bidding. If you have any questions, please contact me but keep in mind, this is my hobby site.
