Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
A friend bought one on ebay for something less than $200, with shipping. No manual and a few keys were dead but a good price.  |
I was looking over at Ebay and I came to the following conclusion.
Most used laptops are sold with 30 days on most everything, except the battery, which is sold 'as-is' and usually untested.
If the battery is dead, it's another $75 to get a new one. Most of the laptops use older memory like SODIMM, so any memory upgrade can cost $50-150. I did say that I was going to use Linux, but even Linux and Firefox might not run well on 128MB.
I find myself creeping towards that $450 mark where I can get a new tested laptop with 512MB-1GB of memory, 80GB hard drive, 1 year warranty, etc. It seems that laptops retain their value better than Hondas.
For $100 I might take a chance, but at $200 the cost of new vs. used is too close to ignore.
Manuals aren't a problem, since most major brands are available for download, but I'm curious as to how your friend will work around the dead keys, unless he intends to always use an external keyboard.
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. --
Barack Hussein Obama