Attention: College students, minimum wage employees, and working Joes! Refurbished notebooks can be a great way to get a top quality rig at a low price! That said, they can also be a great way to get ripped off, if you’re not careful.
Not to shine a negative light on refurbished second hand notebook. They really are a great way to buy a fully loaded rig at a fraction of the price. And if you have a few extra parts laying around, you can easily pack some extra RAM into it, switch out a graphics card, attach your wireless mouse and so on. But you’re only going to get a great deal like this if you know what you’re doing.
As with anything, more than half of refurbished notebooks are not worth the asking price. The number one rule to getting a good deal is that it’s only a good deal if it’s worth more than you paid for it.
So here’s some basic tips for buying a refurbished notebook…
Give it a test drive-
Obviously, this isn’t possible if you’re buying through, say, an auction site, but if it all possible, don’t buy a refurbished notebook without seeing how it runs. If buying online, just make sure you know all the specs before putting your money down, and remember to take anything the seller says with a pinch of salt.
Compromise, and then upgrade-
You can’t be too picky with refurbished notebooks. Getting exactly what you want out of a second hand requires a lot of luck. Rather, it’s a better idea to settle for a bit less, and then build on that with extra parts to get the whole rig a little closer to being your dream laptop.
When possible, buy from people you know-
I’ve always had much better luck getting a good, reliable refurbished computer when buying from someone I know personally. Generally, your friends are a lot less likely to stick you with a cruddy notebook than a stranger is.
If you buy online, only buy through a reliable channel-
eBay has a series of checks and balances, and so do many electronics-focused auction sites. You can usually buy safely through such channels. We strongly recommend against buying a refurbished notebook from some guy you met on a message board!
Luckily, the warning signs are usually pretty obvious if someone’s trying to give you a bum deal. If the seller anxiously insists “It will boot up, cross my heart hope to die!” forget about it. Look for a seller who is fully willing to list all the specs and give you every detail about how well the machine performs, and you should do fine.
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