Any ideas on how to get a nice laptop for really cheap?

@finfer123 Was hoping for no more than 500.

@finfer123 +1 for BB open-box. I think all of my laptops have been open-box deals. I got a $3k MacBook for under $2k because there was a minor nick in the aluminum frame, and it was a ‘special order’, so their system didn’t know how to price it correctly.

On the cheaper end, I got a $600 Lenovo Yoga laptop for just over $300 due to ‘sticker residue’ on the top, and the bottom was all scratched up. I think it was maybe a floor model? But nothing wrong with the screen, and the residue cleaned up with a bit of goo-gone.

@kuoh old laptop was entering the unacceptable territory. It needs some form of GPU, at least 8gb of RAM. Anything that satisfies those first two will likely have an acceptable CPU. I’d like a full 1080 display but beggers can’t be choosers.

@DoctorOW @kuoh Why do you need a discrete GPU? What’s the workloads that need it?

A gaming laptop under $500 is going to require compromises.

@DoctorOW @mike808 From my limited understanding, professional video editing work generally entails a fair amount of video encoding at which GPUs generally excel at. You can make do without it, but it could mean taking hours vs dozens of minutes to complete tasks.

Best bet would be to look at online CPU / GPU comparison charts for what you had vs what you want and set your budget expectations accordingly.

I would aim for RTX 2060 on the low end if you’re looking for something to last a few years. I’ve seen many options around the $1000 mark on Newegg. AMD might be slightly cheaper, but I think Nvidia is supposedly better at encoding tasks. Less than that you’d be looking at the GTX 10 series, which is already pretty out of date now. Other than that, you could try taking your chances with the secondary / used market.

KuoK

@kuoh @mike808 I have a desktop so I won’t need to render video on the laptop. I just need to not totally halt work whenever I’m not in front of it.

@DoctorOW @kuoh If you’re doing transcoding on the laptop as a secondary/fallback kind of tool (e.g. onsite or something), then you might want to focus more on the “business” class of laptops rather than the “gamer” class. You’ll pay a premium for those GPUs because the market is gaming, and frankly, they have more money than sense.

You may be better off with a beefier CPU to do the minor or occasional rendering/transcoding on the go with the laptop, but make sure you get either an all SSD system, or get one with the smallest SSD or HDD you can and then upgrade it yourself with a much faster M.2 SSD and a 1TB or so. So check the specs carefully to see if there is an empty M.2 slot or you can add a 1TB to the 128GB base config it comes with.

If there is no M.2 slot, then again, smallest HDD, then smallest SSD, and manually upgrade it yourself. A 1TB SSD will run you about $100. You’ll pay a premium over that for a pre-configured one in the laptop.

Can you give us some details on your rendering/video tools? Are we talking Handbrake/FFMPEG transcoding stuff, or a consumer video editing tool for home movies, or are you talking about prosumer or professional video production suite tools for monetized content production?

@kuoh @mike808 I use Premiere Pro and After Effects mainly. Though I can’t rule out other video editors.

@brainmist That’s a great idea Mr. Mist. I’m certainly not above adding a hard drive or more RAM.

@compunaut I’ve been looking at some of the Lenovo stuff anyway. I hear the ThinkPad line lasts a long time.

There are some very nice-looking Lenovo P50 laptops available on eBay for under $500.
As someone else mentioned, if you can salvage your own HDD, there are some real bargains for machines without…

@compunaut I’m pretty sold. Placed some bids on a P50 that looks really nice. I guess your username really checks out haha.

@compunaut @DoctorOW If ebay doesn’t work out, both Lenovo and Dell have online outlet sites. They have scratch-and-dent and certified refurbished units. I have had very good experience with two purchases from the Dell Business Outlet.

I haven’t used the Lenovo outlet, but I think I remembering hearing on this board that they are either better or worse now than they were a few years ago, but I don’t remember which!

@compunaut @DoctorOW @Limewater Lenovo’s outlet is a little user friendly now, but the deals are so much worse

@DoctorOW I chose my username back when I did some reselling of used Apple gear on eBay.
That was more than 20 years ago

@compunaut @DoctorOW Dell is HORRIBLE. Mine fell apart…literally! It started with the power port, then the screen became detached, and the keyboard was loose. I’ll never buy another Dell laptop!

@lilsrm123 My last Dell laptop was almost unusable in terms of constantly bluescreening. I replaced parts and reinstalled windows, it was just bad hardware.

@DoctorOW @lilsrm123 ugh, my last Dell was junk. I had fortunately just gotten a refurb Lenovo thinkpad (from meh, I think!). It’s been doing the heavy hauling for about 4 years with no complaints, despite travel and general abuse, but with the move to online, I upgraded to a bigger screen. Also a Lenovo.

As a corporate machine, some had a webcam and some did not. Check for that if you want that. Same with the DVD drive - some had DVD reader/CD writer, and some had the full DVD writer. Also the speaker is MONO but the headphone out is stereo.

@ojohn This is great advice! I’ll look that up. Not worried about webcams or DVD burners.

@djslack To my knowledge rice only helps dry it out. I got it dry before trying to turn it on.

@blaineg Maybe this one? GTX 1050.

https://computers.woot.com/offers/hp-15-dk1035nr-i5-gtx1050-gaming-notebook-1

@blaineg We’ve had good results with Woot for refurb computers. Had pretty good results with eBay as well. YMMV

@Vrysen Keep an eye on Dell Outlet. They have really good deals pop up and get snatched up quickly.

@Vrysen I really love Dell products. And I think they are expensive. I just found this Dell XPS 13 item and it was a bit expensive.

@communist Indeed it does. That’s a pretty good price for what I’d be getting too. I’ll look into that if I’m outbid on ebay. Thanks!

@DoctorOW where did u find it?

@tinamarie1974 eBay. It was negotiated from a buy it nkw

@DoctorOW It’s amazing. You have found a great piece.