If you’re looking to buy notebooks at a discount, you’ve got to watch yourself. Even buying new laptops is something of a mine field, so buying them at a discount is doubly so.
The problem is that, for every good, honest retailer trying to hook a user up with a perfect rig at a low price, there’s about a dozen people looking for a sucker to pawn some worthless junk off on.
Now, of course, we don’t mean to discourage you from buying a second hand, refurbished, sale, wholesale, or discount notebook. By all means, if you get a great opportunity, go for it. It’s just that you need to be careful.
For starters, don’t be lured in by the low price. The first rule to getting a good deal is that it’s only a good deal if it’s a good deal on something you want. If the bookstore had a sale no the new chick lit book that you have no interest in, are you going to buy it? Of course not. So don’t waste money on a laptop you wouldn’t want just because you’ll never get an opportunity to buy a crummy six year old Dell at two hundred bucks ever again.
You need to know what you’re looking for, too. If you don’t have an idea in mind, then you won’t know a good deal when you see it. That said, be flexible. If you’re shopping within a budget, you’re not going to be able to have your pick of the litter, you’re going to have to settle for what you can get.
This seems to contradict everything we just said, but we’re not saying “Buy something junky, it’s all you can afford!” but rather, buy something that you know you can upgrade into a real state of the art machine. The simple trick is to buy something kind of weak, something old, outdated, a little used, and then upgrade it into exactly what you want. In the long run, you save a lot of money.
And lastly, you should only buy your refurbished laptop from a source whom you can hold accountable if you do get gypped. You can usually count on your best friend not to rip you off because, well, you know where he lives! Likewise, any legit website that sells computers can be trusted. Don’t go buying a refurbished laptop off the back of a pickup truck, though! Doesn’t matter if it’s a hundred bucks or twenty five cents. If you can’t return it for a full refund when you get it out of the box and it doesn’t work, you simply don’t want it!
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