Refurbished Laptop, Am I Insane?

[Skrying]

I'm in the market for a "new" laptop right now and I'm fairly certain I want to go with 14" and below in size. The smaller you go the lower the performance and of course the higher the price it seems. I've pretty much established to myself that I want this to be more about battery life and ease in taking it places. I'm looking at least 4 hours of life on a single battery.

In my shopping around I stumbled upon the HP Small & Medium Business refurbished store. Shockingly they have some tremendous deals going right now compared to the normal prices for the units. Namely around $700 for a laptop they sale new at $1800. Now, these carry a 1 year warranty from what I can gather and a 3 year for about $200 extra. But the question still remains; is a refurbished laptop just asking for trouble?

The units I'm specifically looking at are the models 2510p and 2710p. These are 12.1" units using Core 2 Duo ULV's at 1.2Ghz, 1GB to 2GB (depending on what's available and price) of memory, 60GB to 100GB 4200RPM (just how slow will this be?), and the 2710p is a tablet model missing a optical drive, integrated Intel X3100 on both of course. I'm not asking a lot from these units. I want to access email, view the web, take notes, and listen to some music and that's about it. The extent of gaming will be loading up Warcraft 3.

So I have two questions:

1.) Any have experience with refurbished laptops? Specifically HP, but any insight would help a lot.

2.) Is a 4200 RPM hard drive really going to hurt for the tasks described? Office work, web browsing, music (likely not videos), and old games? No matter what I buy I'll upgrade it myself to at least 2GB of memory.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

4200 rpm hard drives are torture.

I've sold (and subsequently serviced) a lot of refurbished computers in the past, and had a fairly good track record with them so I don't think it would be a bad idea to go that route, given the amount of money you'd be saying.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'd replace the 4200rpm drive with a faster one though, not an expensive upgrade but DEFINITELY worth it.

 

[Skrying]

I'd replace the 4200rpm drive with a faster one though, not an expensive upgrade but DEFINITELY worth it.

They use a 1.8" hard drive, which is rather hard finding for sale and the only one I can find listed as 5400 RPM is in HP's configuration options.

 

[zsouthboy]

I too have had great results with refurb equipment of all sorts.

The laptop I type this on right now was refurbed (XPS m1730) and was literally $2k less than I could buy it new for (..which is an insane price that I would never pay).

I have a refurbed Inspiron 1501 that is great as well.

Take a chance but remember that you might end up playing the "ship it back till you get a good one" gamble*

*Actually, I think the same gamble exists with new stuff too much anyway! I think that since something *is* refurbed, it means at least SOMEONE has taken a look at it and fixed whatever's wrong with it - compare to getting a new sealed *whatever* that doesn't work or has severe deficiencies

 

[Skrying]

I'm really surprised by the pricing on these units personally. I've mainly just looked over the Dell and HP refurbished units as they're what I've heard the most about. There are several options I could go with and with the prices being so low it's making the choice much more difficult then I was expecting. Of course assuming all goes well I'll be getting much much better bang for my buck.

 

[Davros]

i do know that you can get brand new laptops in the uk for £229
im guessing that would be about $350 in the u.s
if you dont need a powerhouse why take a chance with a refurb

 

[Geo]

For a 60% discount I'd hit it. . .with the extended warranty.

If you're willing to live with a 1.2 Ghz CPU and a 12.1" screen, then I think it's a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the performance Titanic to be fretting over the 4,200 RPM HDD.

Think of it as a mid-life upgrading opportunity down the road.

I'd be more concerned about whether it supports 802.11n wifi. I'm guessing not. Tho that might not be a deal breaker for a lot of people, I wouldn't do it right now. Tho possibly also an upgrading opportunity.

 

[Zengar]

Really, get a MacBook (the 2.4Ghz one)... It is pretty fast but still small and light...

 

[Skrying]

Really, get a MacBook (the 2.4Ghz one)... It is pretty fast but still small and light...

Which is vastly out of my price range and I refuse to buy Apple products.

 

[Zengar]

So what is your price range?

 

[Skrying]

So what is your price range?

$1,000 and below. The reason why I'm looking into refurbished laptops.

 

[Blazkowicz]

laptops are going down in price these days (as does all computer hardware) so you might find something. Here's a 700€ 13.3" Toshiba laptop in my country (C2D, 2GB, 160GB 5400 rpm HDD) ; the upcoming 10" asus eee PC would do the job.

http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00072697.html

given your requirements any laptop is good enough, you wouldn't need more than 512MB ram (and, no trouble playing video).
yes 4200 rpm HDD are bad. but with a relatively lightweight OS (such as debian or XP without antivirus and OEM crapware) it's not a big issue with your lowly tasks.

 

[Geo]

Well, the question becomes what is your ideal laptop, if price wasn't a consideration? If you prefer ultra-lights that's one thing. . .if you are only interested in it because "it's a great deal" that's something else entirely.

There are a lot of capable 15.4" laptops out there at less than $1,000 in the Sunday ads every week.

 

[Skrying]

Battery life is key. I know I can get a more powerful, larger screen laptop but those same systems even with 9-cells often only give 3 hours of life. That's not much to be honest and I rather be tied to a wall socket as little as possible. From reading various reviews about all the systems I've considered as soon as you hit the ultra mobiles (12.1", Dell's XPS M1330 still doesn't get that great of battery life though it's in my consideration list right now) you get a very large upgrade in battery life.

Example is the HP 2510p and 2710p in reviews often get around 5 hours of life on a 6-cell when browsing with the wireless on.

I'm also concerned about getting a system with a Nvidia chip in it. The worry is annoying to say the least.

 

[Skrying]

Well just ordered a refurbished Dell XPS M1330. In the end size played the largest factor followed by battery life. Bought a unit with a 6-cell and most reviews indicate battery life of around 3.5 hours. We'll see how it is, I'll update the thread with the results of how the refurbished unit is quality wise as I'm sure I'm not the only one to search the interweb for opinions on the topic.

 

[Skrying]

Laptop arrived today and what can I say... I'm mighty impressed with Dell. The system is like new, looks amazingly good, no marks on the unit anywhere. The software package is clearly a fresh install as well. I'm actually *shocked* at how much less bloat (it's still to much, don't be that fooled) is on this system compared to the Dell systems I would repair on a regular basis about two years back now.

So, there you have it really. I'd recommend anyone getting a refurbished unit. This is a XPS M1330 (Intel integrated graphics, so no Nvidia chip worry on this particular unit) and I'm very happy with it. I spent a total of around $1,200 once I increased the units warranty (a must if bought new or refurb'd) and added an extra 9-cell to go along with the units included 6-cell battery.. Comparatively a similar unit new was $1,700 with similar configuration.

 

[Geo]

Enjoy!