thinking of picking up a refurbed business machine,

uses will be

> ebay (selling)
> gunbroker (selling)
> emails,
> surfing the boards,
> business stuff like quickbooks (mostly cloud based)
> uploading pics etc (for ebay/gunbroker/subguns)
> maintain our website (very little, brother does most on his machine
> ATF/VSP online background checks (I am a 01/SOT)



no gaming, web cam use,

wife may be using it to surf catalogs etc,

I'm looking at the following available in a local shop,

Dell E6530
Lenovo T530

both windows 7, i5 chips, 8 ram, 220/250 on the SSD harddrive,

I'll have to add Microsoft windows etc, otherwise turn key type pickup


both cost the same,

I'm picking up my current vintage M4500 Dell Thursday am, and thinking of getting one of the above as a backup, spare, and for the wife to use when needed, (her ancient ipad crapped out)


any one better than the other??

I'm seeing good reviews on both, nothing overly negative,

What gen is the Intel CPU?

I've been using Thinkpads (now lenovo) at work and in my personal life (I always buy refurbished ones for personal use) for upwards of 18years and they've been very solid. I've seen them dropped, with the lids open while going down stairs and not miss a beat. I'm currently running a refurb T430 for personal use and a W541 for work.

Having an SSD is a huge improvement - just be sure to regularly back up important data since when an SSD goes there is typically no warning.

+1 on the Thinkpad, use them for work & for home, been extremely reliable.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
What gen is the Intel CPU?

3, I think

He said the i5 would be faster than my old i7and that the machine is about 3 yrs old, ex lease

I would pick whichever one is less beat up & make sure the screen is bright & clear.
Otherwise, it sounds like a draw, with the tiebreaker going to Dell, which is a slightly less chinese company.
The i5 being faster than i7 is bullshit in terms of raw computing power, but you won't notice a difference for your uses & if you're going from HDD to SSD, the system will be significantly faster.
I've had good luck with 2 Dell refurbs from Newegg, after having to send one back due to screen issues. Gma & wife are happy with them.

quote:

Lenovo T530

I've had good luck with the Lenovo W520 I'm on now....

Let's see, I have two Lenovo T450 laptops and a Dell Latitude e6430 my son uses at college. They're all refurbs, and they all have been terrific. Like someone else noted, I'd pick the one that's in the best condition and cal it a day.

I would go with Lenovo myself. Their biz class laptops are very easy to work on and batteries usually available from a number of sources at good prices even for the older ones.

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:
I would pick whichever one is less beat up & make sure the screen is bright & clear.
Otherwise, it sounds like a draw, with the tiebreaker going to Dell, which is a slightly less chinese company.
The i5 being faster than i7 is bullshit in terms of raw computing power, but you won't notice a difference for your uses & if you're going from HDD to SSD, the system will be significantly faster.
I've had good luck with 2 Dell refurbs from Newegg, after having to send one back due to screen issues. Gma & wife are happy with them.

dude was saying my 1st gen i7 with the hard drive would be slower than a 3rd(?) gen i5 with the SSD,

thanks all for the input,

gonna toss it around a bit then pick one of them up when I pick up my old Dell Thursday

Listing to Leo Laporte (the Tech Guy) POD cast last weekend... he wholeheartedly recommended the Levono Think Pads... for what that's worth. But stay away from Levono consumer gear. They are made in different factories using different components and different engineering team and at one point the consumer machines were intentionally loaded with "Superfish" a malicious adware which compromised security. The FTC got involved and there were law suits galore.

Look at the Lenovo factory outlet.
They sell direct and have a different inventory each day. Refurbished, corporate configured over runs, etc.
I've bought my last three there and got them configured with much higher end stuff than I would have bought otherwise.

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/

quote:

Originally posted by lyman:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
What gen is the Intel CPU?

3, I think

He said the i5 would be faster than my old i7and that the machine is about 3 yrs old, ex lease

OK, Gen 3 was released 5 years ago.
Current is Gen 7 and just now releasing Gen 8.

Hopefully the computer is dirt cheap.

FWIW I3,I5,I7 are all basically the same except:

I5 adds hyperthreading > doubles cores
I7 same as I5 but with turbo mode > will ramp up (overclock) cpu speed for short term as needed.

SSD's will make the most impact.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
Look at the Lenovo factory outlet.
They sell direct and have a different inventory each day. Refurbished, corporate configured over runs, etc.
I've bought my last three there and got them configured with much higher end stuff than I would have bought otherwise.

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/

Another vote for this.

I use my laptop for my business and would NEVER buy refurbished. I just have something against buying something that was already broken once.

To answer your question. My uses are pretty much the same as yours. I simply buy the HP or DELL laptop that's on sale at Office Depot for around the $400. Because, no matter what you spend on a laptop both the battery and cooling fan are done in 2 years of constant use. I simply buy a new one every 2-3 years and replace it BEFORE it breaks because by that time either the fan is noisy or the battery is crap and I'm not waiting until the machine goes down and I have to start recreating all of my business files since the last backup.

Both are excellent machines and should serve you well. Except for the Keyboard layout, the hardware is nearly identical, and although the available options were a little better on the T530, it'll depend on how they're configured. Honestly, I'd play with both and go with your gut on whichever one feels, looks, operates best for you. Two KEY features I'd pay attention to:

Keyboard / Touchpad - In my opinion the Lenovo wins here with a Superior Keyboard! Although the Touchpad might be a bit larger on the Dell, it's also offset to the left (as is the Alpha Keyboard), due to the numeric Keypad....I'm NOT a fan of this arrangement!
Display - Based on the available options of both Laptops, you definitely want a 1920x1080 FHD Display! Trust me on this....Don't compromise here!

Another smaller detail to consider:
I/O Port Access - Although both have very similar I/O (only real difference is HDMI on the Dell vs Mini DP on the T530), where are all the ports located, and does that work for you?

My experiences - All of my employer provided Laptops since Y2K have been Dell Latitudes. I had a couple of 14" Latitudes from that generation (E6420/E6430) and I never had a single hardware issue. All of my personal Laptops since Windows 98 have been IBM/Lenovo's. I recently purchased a Lenovo W530 (Workstation version of the T530) and my decision for that machine was purely hardware driven.

Earlier this year, I desperately needed a new Laptop, and one feature I really wanted was a high quality 15" FHD Display. As it turns out, the Lenovo T530/W530's were the last 15" ThinkPads w/o a numeric keypad. As a lefty, having the UltraNav Touchpad offset to the left side of the palmrest really wouldn't work, so new machines weren't an option for me. Primarily based on that issue (and some performance options I preferred to have), it came down to finding a refurbished W530 ThinkPad in 'As new As Possible' condition. After a few weeks of research (and watching auctions on eBay), I found the 'right' W530 for $520.

All that said, I'd probably go with the Lenovo ThinkPad!

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
I use my laptop for my business and would NEVER buy refurbished.
I just have something against buying something that was already broken once.

The real concern isn't or shouldn't be that something was once broken.
If properly done it could actually be better than a mass produced new machine.
New parts, properly tested, installed and configured should yield good results.

The main concern is old or obsolete technology.
This is especially true for laptops.
As opposed to desktops they are substantially less productive.
They are built for mobility and efficiency which comes by cramming everything into a mobile chaises aka case.

I always recommend buying as much technology (more $$) as you can afford in a laptop/notebook.
Desktops are easier to upgrade to stretch out the shelf life.

YMMV

We’ve had three refurb Thinkpads for home use and all have been stellar. Both of us have good experiences with Thinkpads at work, and spec them when we can.

Last time I tried Dell Latitude refurbs they had some small issues over at least two generations of machines, and the company ended up spending way more in user frustration and lost productivity, and internal IT troubleshooting than any ‘savings’. Better experiences with new Latitudes (and prefer the keyboards) but still spec Thinkpads.

I wouldn’t go through a third party refurb or reseller. You’ll never know what standard they were refurbed to.

Both companies (every companies?) low-mid range home computers are pretty crappy quality and should not be used as evidence of good or bad in mid-high business lines. They build to a price point, and as noted that is usually $400 (which buys shit that might last a couple years but your life is sucked out every time you use it).

I’ve also bought three Apple refurbs; outstanding.

After going through several laptops, my wife purchased a Think Pad for work and it has proven to have been a wise choice.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
I use my laptop for my business and would NEVER buy refurbished. I just have something against buying something that was already broken once.

To answer your question. My uses are pretty much the same as yours. I simply buy the HP or DELL laptop that's on sale at Office Depot for around the $400. Because, no matter what you spend on a laptop both the battery and cooling fan are done in 2 years of constant use. I simply buy a new one every 2-3 years and replace it BEFORE it breaks because by that time either the fan is noisy or the battery is crap and I'm not waiting until the machine goes down and I have to start recreating all of my business files since the last backup.

my old m4500, ex business owned machine, has had almost zero issues except me dropping it,

likely 8-10 yrs old, fan runs great, only concern would be the dvd/cd player sometimes does not work, but since I never use it, no worries,
I did recently replace a battery, but I consider that the same as putting tires on a car, a necessary expense,

so my $230 investment not only saved me $$ in initial cost, but has also lasted 2x's as long as your expectations,

I'll still spend some time surfing info linked above, , but will likely pick up the Lenovo if it is still there in the morning when I pick my dell up,

maybe,


just to throw this out there, I am not a computer tech type guy, just a user, (hence my asking here where there are plenty of good sources!)

I did buy my desktop thru HP and a corporate discount program years ago,
I learned thru that that you can get a much better machine for basically the same money factory direct vs buying at a big box retailer,

and much less crapola installed as well,

this local shop does good work, we have used them in the past for my brothers laptop (virus issues) so there is both the local business thing, as well as knowing who you are dealing with, and knowing they will stand behind it if something goes tits up