Laptops Arena

Refurbished laptops are to be found at every corner and for people that don’t wish to waste too much time, we are going to present some models coming from an online store which you should take into consideration when you are on the market looking for one unit that is not going to make hole in your budget.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
www.overstock.com may be one online store with a price written in Euros but converting them into dollars is going to reveal some unit which are really cheap and could make wise purchase choices.  463 Euros is the price you have to pay if you want to get your hands on the refurbished Panasonic Toughbook CF-29. I know that this laptop may look a bit too thick for your taste but it is actually a very solid notebook with great built-in construction that proves we are dealing with durability above all. This 13.3 inch laptop does not come with the most awesome specs that you could find on similarly priced laptops.

The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 40 GB. The processor is a 1.4 GHZ Intel Centrino that comes combines with 512 MB of RAM. I guess that these components could compensate a little bit with the fact that the Panasonic Toughbook comes with a case made of magnesium alloy and a shock resistant hard drive. It comes with the preinstalled version of the Windows XP Professional operating system and other features like an included CD-ROM optical drive and, the best part of all, a touch screen. The dimensions of this unit are 11 x 9 x 2 not exactly the best figures for a 13.3 inch laptop. It is, however, an ideal choice for people that are seeking durability in a portable unit.



When you are looking for a unit with a bit more style and even a bit more power, you would expect to have to pay more. This is not the case of the HP Pavilion G60-519WM refurbished laptop that can be purchased for as low as 441 Euros. This unit is based on a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron 900 processor and 4 GB of RAM. The graphics card is the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M that can use up to 1 GB of memory from the regular RAM. The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 250 GB. The unit comes with the preinstalled version of the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and it measures 14 x 9 x 1 inches in dimensions. Other features of this beautiful black and silver laptop are the DVD burner which uses the LightScribe Technology and the Altec Lasing speakers which have always been a wise choice that HP has made regarding most of the laptop models from the Pavilion Series.  The 15.6 inch display uses the HP BrightView technology which means the display is covered in a glossy coating to make the colors appear sharper and more vibrating. This display has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.

If you cannot afford to spend a lot of money for a new laptop, you can find many low cost refurbished laptops on the internet, units which will give you the same performance like a new one but at a lower price.
<-336x280 Large Rectangle - center->
Why are they called refurbished? Well, refurbished laptops are the ones that customers have returned to the factory for different reasons and once those units were tested and checked for errors and had all the problems fixed, they were resold at a much lower price simply because they cannot be considered brand new material. In this review we will present you some offers which can be found on the internet, offers which we think are very attractive.

For example, on the www.laptopcloseout.com you can find the IBM ThinkPad T42 for a price of only $279. This unit is designed for those people who are looking for a practical laptop or even for a business person. The configuration of this device is not very impressive. It comes with an Intel Pentium M Centrino 1730 MHz processor and 512 MB of RAM memory, 40 GB of hard disk free space and an integrated Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family graphics card. It also comes with a CD-RW / DVD optical drive, a modem port, a 10/100 network card internal, 2 USB ports, internal Wireless and the usual headphones and microphones jacks.



Another unit from the low cost refurbished laptops list is the HP NC6400, a laptop which can be bought for the price of $450.  This unit is based on a 1.8 GHz Intel Dual Core processor and 2 GB of RAM which can be upgraded to a maximum 4 GB. The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 80 GB and the graphic card is the ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 with 512 MB if video memory.  This unit comes with a 14.1 inch TFT display which has a native resolution of 1400 x 1050 pixels, a very good and high resolution considering the size of the screen. The HP NC6400 is host to 4 USB ports, one modem port and one Ethernet jack, a FireWire port, a finger print reader, a DVD burner, an S-Video out, an SD media card reader and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. The unit comes with the preinstalled version of the Windows XP Professional operating system and 4.9 lbs of total weight.



These are 2 of the many examples of low cost refurbished laptops that you can buy from this online store. Of course, you can choose some of the more expensive models which also come with improved specs. Such an example would be the Dell Inspiron 17, a unit which is priced at $760. This unit is based on a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor and 4 GB of RAM.  It can store a total of 500 GB of files and it comes with a lot of cool features like a 17.3 inch display, an SD card reader and even the Windows 7 Home operating system preinstalled.

Buying a used laptop is often a great way of saving some money. A used laptop is recommended for people that are on a budget and don’t want to spend a fortune on a laptop, for people that are not too picky about their laptops and they just want a unit that will help them get their regular computing tasks done and even for people that have always wanted a certain laptop model but could not afford to pay the full price of a new machine.

<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->

A great website where you can start searching for a used laptop is www.usedlaptops.com. The variety of laptop which are available on this website may not be the greatest but the prices are definitely something amazing and worth looking into. For example, if you are willing to pay $300, you can get a used version of the IBM Thinkpad T43. This laptop comes with a 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium M processor and 512 MB of RAM. Even if the amount of RAM is not satisfying at all, you will be happy to know that you can upgrade your unit and put up to 4 GB of RAM in there. The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 40 GB and the graphics card is the ATI Mobility Radeon X1300. The 14.1 inch display comes with a native resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Other features of this laptop that may interest you are the included Express Card slot, the type II PC card slot, the VGA out, the Ethernet and modem port and the 3 USB ports. The unit comes with a preinstalled version of the Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system.

If you are interested in an used laptop which is a bit more powerful that this one here, you may want to go with the IBM Thinkpad T60 which can be bought for a price of $380. The unit is based on a 1.83 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core T2400 processor and 1 GB of RAM which can be extended to a maximum of 4 GB. the total storage capacity of the hard disk is 60 GB and the graphics card is the ATI Radeon X1300. Just like you did in the case of the laptop described above, you will get this unit with a 14.1 inch display that has a native resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.



Even if most of the components are very similar to the ones on the laptop model we mentioned above, the processor on this unit is more powerful and you get more RAM installed right from the start. As for the ports and features, this laptop has one Express Card a lot, 3 USB ports, one VGA out, the Ethernet port and the modem jack, not to mention the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. You also get the preinstalled version of the Windows XP Professional operating system and a DVD reader plus a CD writer combo (which only allows you to burn CDs and no DVDs).

For this article, we tried to gather up a couple of models of refurbished laptops under $300. And we found a lot more that we expected. You have to be aware that these models have old specs which are totally out-of-date. The components are really weak so you can’t expect any amazing performance. These laptops are mostly for people that are in desperate need of laptop to help them meet their basic computer needs.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
www.usanotebooks.com has some nice deals on refurbished laptops under $300. For $149 you can buy the IBM ThinkPad T21. It has an Intel Pentium 3 processor which operated at the low speed of 800 MHz. This laptop has only 256 MB of RAM and we were used to at least 2 GB, this laptop can be a problem. The disk space storage offers only 30 GB which is lower than some netbooks out there (and netbooks have low disk capacities). The graphics card is the integrated AGP 2X with 8 MB of video memory. The display is 14.1 inches long and as far as ports and connections go we have only 1 SB port, 1 S-Video out, 1 Video out 15 pin db, 1 PS2, 1 serial 9 pin db, one headphone out and one microphone in jack plus one 1 RS232 25 pin db.  It weights 5.3 lbs and it comes with a 6 months warranty. The operating system is the Linux Ubuntu and frankly with 256 MB of RAM I’m not sure what other operating system it could support.

If you want to pay $250 you can buy the HP Compaq NC6000 which is a notch better than the ThinkPad T21. It has a 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium processor with 512 MB of RAM. The capacity of the hard disk is 40 GB which is still not satisfying enough considering the number of application that we usually install on a laptop. It leaves us with almost no free space at all. The graphics card is an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with either 32 or 64 MB of video memory. If you pay $20 extra, you can get the wireless card along with the Ethernet option. We do recommend you choose this extra option because having a wireless card is one of the benefits of owning a laptop. Besides, the number of wireless hot spots throughout your city is growing as we speak. This laptop has 2 USB ports, 1 serial port, a port for any exterior monitors you want to attach, 1 S-Video port, 1 PS2 port, an expansion slot 1 infrared and the headphones out and microphone in jacks. It only has a 3 month warranty (pretty good if you consider the price tag) and the Linux Ubuntu operating system.



As we move to www.skyexlaptopstore.com we find even more models for refurbished laptops under $300. Most of them are also IBM ThinkPads but we do have some extra models available. $295 is the cost of the refurbished Dell Latitude D610. The CPU is the 1.73 GHz Intel Pentium M which is combined this time with 1 GB of memory. It’s a bit closer to what we are used in seeing in laptops but the processor is still very weak and since it determines the speed of the laptop, don’t expect any super performance. The hard drive provides 40 GB of storage space so maybe you could buy an external hard drive if you choose this laptop. The optical drive is a CD burner – DVD reader combo which means you can’t burn any DVDs, only CDs. The graphics card takes shape in the ATI Mobility Radeon X300 PCI Express x 16 which has 64 MB of video memory. Thank God this laptop has 4 USB ports. Other than that, it has the same types of ports and connections like the NC6000 we spoke of above. There is a 14.1 inch display and the laptop weighs about 5.4 lbs. it is a factory refurbished laptop that comes with a 6 months warranty and the Windows XP Pro operating system. The Strike Zone is a nice feature because it keeps you hard drive protected in case of any shocks.



The last laptop which is worth mentioning is the Acer Aspire One AOD250 1580 which comes in a nice blue color. This is in fact a netbook because it fits into the small and light laptop category for those that are looking for a unit to surf the internet and work on some documents. It is backed up by the 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor which is common for netbooks. It has 1 GB of Ram and the funny thing is that it has 160 GB of free disk space. This means that this 10.1 inch mini laptop is better than the 14.1 laptops we have written about above. Acer Aspire One is a series of very successful mini laptops so buying a refurbished one may not be such a bad idea. It costs $285 and a brand new unit is about $400 so it’s safe to say you’ll be paying some money if you go refurbished. The graphics card is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 which has a maximum resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. It may be a little difficult to read big documents and you also have to keep scrolling a lot though big web pages but what did you expect from a laptop with such a small screen. Besides, this is the price that you have to pay for the portability of this laptop.



It has a built in microphone plus two stereo speakers. 3 USB ports should be satisfying for a 10.2”x 7.2” x 1” laptop. It also has one VGA port and one headphone out and microphone in jack. It weighs about 2.8 lbs so carrying it around should not be a big burden. It also has an SD card reader and a storage expansion slot. Since you have an integrated microphone, you also get an integrated webcam which is great if you are always travelling and want to stay in touch with the people back home using video calls. This unit also has the Windows XP Pro operating system and a 6 months warranty. What more could you ask for?

I know that in the past we spoke a lot about refurbished laptops (and there are yet some articles to come on this subject) but the truth is there are some difference between different types of laptops. There are laptops that don’t return to the factory and the store who sold them is the one that resells them. This usually happens when people return the laptop without having even turned it on. Big dealers also have a good team of technicians that can check out if there is anything wrong with the unit. CompUSA usually doesn’t send returned laptops to the factory.
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
On the other hand, I have to say I trust factory refurbished laptops more than the other ones. This type of laptops is returned to the manufacturer’s factory to review and recheck them for any type of problems or errors.  If there is any part that is found defective, it is immediately replace with a brand new one. When this laptop is resold is practically like a brand new one. To tell you the truth, I think that the difference of money between the new and the refurbished laptop is actually the concept of owning something new. That is what you pay for, to feel reassured that you have a new notebook. In fact, the 2 machines are actually very similar. They both have new parts, they both have warranties, and they are both backed up by the quality guarantee of the manufacturer.

There are cases where laptops have been returned to the factory even if there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. Some people don’t even plug them in or turn them on before returning them. This is because of the “leaks” in the return policy that the dealer gives you upon purchase. This return policy basically allows you to return the laptop for every reason, even if it’s a little stupid. Sometimes, laptops can be returned even when the buyer has a guilty conscience about spending too much money. In cases like these, where the laptops are still brand new, the factory will format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. They also have to change the serial number in order to tell that that particular unit has been refurbished. There are different technicians that carefully examine different parts of the laptop and after they each fix the errors individually, the laptop is rechecked in the end by the quality control department. You see? It’s like buying a new unit.



The difference is that refurbished laptops usually have a shorter warranty period, which is usually half of the warranty period of the same brand new model (generally 6 months because most warranties cover 1 year). But there are certain manufacturers that can extend your warranty period, for a small fee, of course. What is the main advantage in buying a factory refurbished laptop you ask? Why, it’s definitely the price! Refurbished laptops may act like brand new ones but they are sold for hundreds of dollars less than the original price. Expensive laptops, the ones that originally cost over $1000 can now be purchased for about $650 - $700. This is how you can afford that laptop model you have always wanted but you thought it was too expensive to pay the entire price. The other method is by making monthly payments on a laptop but then you would have to get involved in more paperwork and there is also the interest that you end up paying so it may not be such a good idea. As usual, senior citizens, companies, military and students get discounts on these laptops as well.



Factory refurbished laptops can be purchased directly from the manufacturer, so the absence of a third party makes them even cheaper. This is why refurbished always makes a good bargain. Another category of refurbished laptops are the off lease ones. This process work as following: as you know, when you purchase a new laptop you have a period of, let’s say 3 months, when you can use the laptop before returning it to the seller. People that return these laptops usually do so in a period of maximum 2 weeks so the manufacturers take advantage of this remaining period and lease the laptops to a company that needs a big number of laptops for business. When that lease period has expired, the company returns those laptops to the manufacturer for revision. After every error has been solved and every problem has been corrected, they are sold as cheap refurbished laptops.



For example, a new Dell Inspiron 1545 is available for purchase at around $900. If you buy it brand new, that is. Search for some refurbished deals and you could find this laptop at $500. And that is a price which I’m sure most of you can afford. It’s also safer to go refurbished for families that don’t have any life economy bank accounts and they live each month from their salaries. You don’t even have to waste any of your precious time to go to stores and check out all the offers because there are a lot of refurbished laptop seller that have a website where you can check all their products online. Of course, if you want to personally go to the store and see the merchandise for yourself that is a perfectly understandable (and wise) decision.



It is safer and recommended that if you can’t afford a new laptop but you are in need of one, to buy refurbished laptop from a dealer rather that a used laptop from someone you may not know and trust. Remember that used laptops may be out of warranty and they also may be defective so you end up paying some money for nothing.  This is why refurbished is a good solution for students that need laptops before they go and live on campus and even for companies that are in need of machines for their employees (usually for their sales people). Such companies believe that the investment in new machines is pretty useless so they go refurbished.