I want to buy a used laptop on ebay and I'm on a tight budget, what specs should I look for?

Question

I'll be using it at home for basic home use. Wireless is a must. I'll be surfing the internet a lot. I will be using MS Money, Firefox and word processing. I also want to watch DVDs with it. No games, I have a desktop for that. What are the minimum specs that I should look for? Any other advice?

Answer 1

First off I would advise against buying a used laptop. Mainly because the warranty is normally only 3 to 6 months at best. Some computers have software that is not original equipment for the computer and making updates for XP can't be done because Microsoft cannot verify the copy of Windows. But if you are the gambling type this is what you will need:

Processor & Chipset Processor Intel Celeron M 420 1.6GHz Bus Speed 533MHz Chipset Intel 940GML Express
Memory Standard Memory 512MB Maximum Memory 2GB Memory Technology DDR2 SDRAM Memory Standard DDR2-533/PC2-4200
Storage Hard Drive 60GB Ultra ATA Optical Drive Combo Drive -CD-RW/DVD-ROM (Integrated)
Display & Graphics Display Screen 14.1" WXGA Widescreen Active Matrix TFT Color LCD Graphics Controller Intel Graphics
Network & Communication Network 54Mbps Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b/g
Keyboard 88-key
Interfaces/Ports Ports 1 x DC Power Input
Operating System Windows XP Home Edition
Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) Standard Battery

I would also install AVG Antivirus software on this system.

Answer 2

As long as the laptop you want has wireless capabilities and a DVD drive you should be okay with any of the well known producers of laptops. I mean you say you're just using the thing as for websurfing and wordprocessing, not programming or game graphics or any other high-end use. All the manufacturers have upgraded the specs on their computers as computing power is cheap. Why buy a mercedes laptop (dual processors, lots of RAM, and 80 gigs of hard drive, etc) if you are just using it for volkswagon tasks? To me the major thing to look out for is buying electronics on ebay can be very problematic, e.g. lack of warranties,some of the stuff is stolen, or an out of country seller masks their identity (takes your money and runs), or you it arrives with missing pieces/broken, and other scams. If you insist on going this route, look carefully at the seller's history, etc. and read the buying guides posted on the ebay site. You may want to check out a used computer store in your area. That way you can test drive the thing and see if it's what you want, you may also get some software thrown in. My friend did that and got MS Office, Adobe, and some other high end stuff already installed on the computer...and got the discs too. Good luck.

Answer 3

Laptops are not as easy to repair as desktops, so make sure you buy from a reputable seller to start with.

As for minimum specs, based on what you want to use it for, you will want a DVD player, and either integrated wireless or a wireless adapter (which can be added on later if needed).

Other than that, I would suggest a minimum of a Pentium 3 processor and 256MB RAM if you are trying to get by cheaply. That should serve your purposes well enough. Anything above that would be icing on the cake :)

Best of luck!

Answer 4

Don't worry about integrated wireless. You can always get a PCI wireless card for $30 on ebay.

If you're using Win XP, minimum specs should be approx.

500 MHz processor
10GB Hard drive
128 MB ram

If you're using Win98 you can get away with less than that.

also make sure it has a dvd-rom or dvd/rw disk drive.

Answer 5

here's a link on ebay where you can read reviews of them by ebay members