Would you buy used laptops?

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MeliodusSama@reddit

I have for years. Having said that, the 2 things I always look at are replacing the batteries and, upgrading the hard drives. And the last most important this is what will I use it for? Oh, and I never buy anything older than 3 years.

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Excited_Biologist@reddit

I quit a previous job because a CFO kept going around CIO to purchase some shitty used laptops. Told him that if he didn't grow a spine and push back I'd walk, and well, I walked and got a job that actually gave a shit about equipment.

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lazydonovan@reddit

Had something similar back around 2000. I specced out some SBCs and the purchase found some that were "far cheaper". Well, they definitely were. We had a lot of failures on them.

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wellmaybe_@reddit

when the pandemic first hit and no notebooks where available we purchased a couple of refurbished hp elitebooks and the are still working fine today. it wasn't our first choice but it did work out

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zchen27@reddit

Man during the pandemic my company-issued HP Elitebook became a very spicy pillow.

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CeeMX@reddit

Refurbs are really underrated, they worked fine for years before they got decommissioned and if something broke down it got repaired, so the Monday devices are sieved out already. The used thinkpads I bought for my home use never had problems even with heavy use, while the new ones at work died like flies. After all notebooks are Cattle anyways, so when something breaks, the user gets a replacement and we open a ticket for repair to put that thing as spare in storage afterwards.

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davidm2232@reddit

We had such good luck with the refurbs that we totally switched to them. Had minimal issues and they were 1/4 the cost

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Weeksy79@reddit

For personal use, absolutely. For company use, fuck no.

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maevian@reddit

100% this, I ain’t taking the risk in buying used for deployment

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Ketalon1@reddit

It depends on the use case. for an office job where they plug into a dock and need it 100% yes buy new, but I order refurbished for our manufacturing shop since they really only need a web browser to log into the ERP system. plus in that kind of an environment realistically i should opt in for something like toughbooks but since they dont use them all that much, just to edit the status of their projects and to clock time, I just get them cheap refurbished laptops. that way if they get broken its not a huge deal.

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MedicatedLiver@reddit

I have a client that insists on ebay specials for all their machines. I was able to talk them into replacing the aged Dell PowerEdge T110 with Server 2008 on it (and they didn't even leverage anything outside of SMB,DHCP,DNS) for a Synology last year. And was at least able to shoo them away from the shit-show 5th-6th gen Intel Optiplexes they wanted for something with a.) AMT out of band support b.) Windows 11 compatible 8th gen or newer c.) send them to me so I could fully wipe and image them. And boy howdy. The machines are pretty legit Optiplexes, decent RAM and SSD specs, and the ONE machine that had a broken power switch (legit, the switch behind the button on the front had a broken prong that prevented it from snapping into place) quickly was resolved..... BUT, yeah, it had remote access software pre-installed, then who knows what else. https://preview.redd.it/axb4k7c2e57d1.jpeg?width=583&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=495b2109374a97b2335a03e2e67ee958a6516d86

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bleuflamenc0@reddit

Doing a wipe and reload seems pretty obvious if you are buying used hardware, I would think? I'd probably want to re-apply Windows from media, although I've tested the Windows reset function and found it to reliably blow away viruses and malware.

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countextreme@reddit

Depending on your threat model, this isn't good enough anymore. If you want a good scare, go look up EFI bootkits and Windows Platform Binary Table.

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MedicatedLiver@reddit

You'd think, but some people, they just take what is on there. But noooope. If I'm responsible for supporting it, it's getting a known clean install. Be that USB or a PXE booted image.

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DestituteRoot@reddit

Minimum of clean install from media and flash firmware of the motherboard and rapid storage drivers.

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countextreme@reddit

This is a client that is asking to be fired. If they want to cheap out this much on hardware, I can't imagine that they are paying you what you are worth (nor accepting extra billable time on top of your service agreement to deal with the additional troubleshooting of out-of-support hardware)

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Vaxtrian@reddit

We just use second hand laptops. When an office person needs a new laptop for (mostly) "performance" reasons, the old, but still good, laptop goes to someone else. Or interns :)

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junkytrunks@reddit

Do you sanitize them fully before reissuing? I am guessing you do not.

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Mike_Raven@reddit

I like how you've defined "someone else" and "interns" as different groups of people.

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SlowButABro@reddit

For personal use, I have *only ever* bought used in 25 years. LOL. For company use, I agree. New only. Don't screw around with laptop hardware when there is money to be made.

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SAugsburger@reddit

This. There was a point at the height of the pandemic where some orgs cut some corners on purchasing due to lead times being absurd, but that's not a major issue anymore.

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much_longer_username@reddit

Silver linings: my org finally saw the merit in keeping a couple of loaner machines on the shelf instead of making me turn around the same machines or rush order new ones.

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hamburgler26@reddit

Can't send enough upvotes. Buying used for business use is looney tunes absurd.

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fshannon3@reddit

Absolutely. I just purchased one of the laptops being "retired" from my organization. It's 3 years old and still in good shape, I just wiped it and put a clean install on it. Personal use only. I would hope any decent organization would not buy a used laptop for deploying to employees. I'd want those systems to have a manufacturer's warranty on them.

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Lughnasadh32@reddit

We do this as well. 1/3 of all PCs are replaced every year (with brand new models) and the old ones are offered for sale to the employees at a discounted price. On the other side, other than servers, nothing is over 3 years old in the building.

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Naznarreb@reddit

I tried for a couple years to be able to sell/give old laptops, but couldn't get all the various teams to buy in and eventually gave up. It's been a few years since I last brought it up, and our infrastructure is a lot different now. Might try bringing it up again.

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TheSmJ@reddit

We do this on a 2 year cycle, only they're leased rather than purchased/resold.

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plexguy@reddit

Those are exactly the ideaal notebooks to get for personal use. Using Dell as an example the compromises they make for their business grades work for me. Consumer grade Dell is serious hit or miss on the compromises that can cause significant performance issues. Business grade are built better both in components while still able to take bumps and even a drop. Also businesses grade tends to have better CPU and more consistant components. You get what you pay gor and in some cases previous generation works just as well for your use case. Again these are generalities, not all consumer grade equpment is bad and not all business grade are better. You still need to do your homework as both lines have some gems, some meh and some bad.

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Whiskeyno@reddit

God I had to buy 20 when covid hit for work from home. Did anybody learn a lesson? No

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PrudentJackal@reddit

This. Very happy to use them for personal use, I have a beastly Latitude 5580 that I picked up for $200 a few months ago. Has an i7-7820HQ CPU, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, and 930MX GPU. I replaced the battery with a brand new aftermarket replacement and the battery life went from about 1.5hrs to 5-8hrs. Of course with the power level turned down (second from bottom setting), performs plenty well for sitting on the couch browsing, doing some coding, watching videos.

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thatohgi@reddit

This is the way.

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post4u@reddit

Same. I bought a used 17" HP laptop from Amazon to use for work that I keep at home to use when working remotely. It works great so far. I'll take care of it if it breaks. But I'm not going to do that for the rest of our fleet. New all the way. Even if they work well, it's hard to get into a consistent replace/refresh cycle with used hardware as you can never count on vendors always having enough used inventory to supply what you need.

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LaHawks@reddit

This. I don't own any laptops nowadays that I didn't buy from a company surplus sale. Hell, I've even picked up used server equipment for my personal use. I'd never use that for an enterprise production environment, though. There's a reason it's no longer in use.

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Apprehensive_Way8674@reddit

Bingo

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HunnyPuns@reddit

Reddit isn't showing the vote total for this comment. But whatever it is, the comment is underrated. As much as I, personally believe that there is good use to be had in modern hardware, you absolutely cannot hand a used, modern laptop with integrated battery at 50%, to a user. Used desktops? Maybe. Used servers? Abso-fucking-loutely. Modern laptops are designed to be useless after use.

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Sudden-Most-4797@reddit

Ding ding ding!

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ajscott@reddit

Same. For personal use you also need to make sure that there's no Intune or Absolute enrollment on the systems and that the BIOS password is clear.

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rebornfenix@reddit

for personal use, i love the "We have lots of machines laying around the office. Who wants them for $some stupid low price?" used all day unless its high end gaming in which case, its the specs that are the issue.

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shrekerecker97@reddit

this right here. I can fix anything that I buy, but not imagine doing it with pissed off people on a much larger scale.

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TheThiefMaster@reddit

I've almost exclusively bought used laptops for personal use. You can get a better spec than new for a fraction of the cost and the only downside is it might need a new battery, which would *still* leave you ahead on cost? It's a no brainer. But in the corporate world you want a predictable guaranteed lifespan with depreciation and failure statistics and a warranty of more than a month...

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NoReallyLetsBeFriend@reddit

I have bought from Lenovo outlet a few times for employees. Currently, I've bought Thinkpad T16 gen 1, the date on the bottom from original manufactured was 11/23. It does say may contain used parts. My guess is something failed QC, or was returned and fixed with something or if another broken Device, but I've been paying between $6-700 for laptops otherwise double the price. They keyboards are clean, no wear masks like they're used, no scuffs, no fingerprints on the screens... Nothing. So far my battery on the latest is about 5-6 hours which I'd expect anyway for the more performance-oriented models. The E16 are efficient and run the U-SKU Intel. No thanks, not enough P cores (performance). T is mid and P is top on my eyes based on Intel CPU SKUs. I will definitely use them again. IDK how Dell and HP do it but I assume similarly. These employees are typically newer or lower on the food chain, or don't need a portable Device, yet "they need to be mobile". I hate they stay plugged in 24/7 since I'll eventually replace batteries. Not my money.

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a60v@reddit

Occasionally, the Lenovo outlet will have models with 3- and 4-year warranties. Look for those, since it doesn't usually increase the price by much. You may have to fight with them to actually get the warranty, but you are fine as long as the original listing shows it and you have the order receipt. Also, you can buy the extended warranty after the fact, too, or extend an existing one. Even for outlet purchases.

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Kritchsgau@reddit

Yeah i always buy our company’s old elitebooks. Top quality stuff. Mind you i pay like $50 for it. Get a few then flip them keeping the best version myself. Smash the laptops in stores.

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Ketalon1@reddit

Thats odd you have to buy stuff, how we roll where I work is we stock up a pallet of decommissioned stuff and once a month its shipped out as ewaste (the pallet never really ever gets too big, somethings got to be either broken or just a drop in replacement) idk why some good stuff gets thrown in that pile as well, so a lot of the IT staff here pick through the pile and get some pretty good stuff, ive picked up a ton of good lower end dell optiplexes which i sell on marketplace (lol) and ive picked up several network switches for my home lab! even a few rack servers as well! all for free!

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Visible_Witness_884@reddit

How do you not have an agreement with a waste management company? I worked a job where we hauled out palets of PCs often, and all of it went to a certified data destruction company that would also refurb/reuse/recycle the machines. No-one was allowed to just get one. Later we changed it up so that all hardware was leased, which meant even less leeway.

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Ketalon1@reddit

when critical stuff like that gets recycled where I work I pull the drives and ram since im the one who controls what gets thrown into e waste. but 95% of stuff that gets ewasted are broken monitors and keyboard/mouse. I work for a smaller company and we dont have an agreement with a waste company since we dont even ewaste equipment often.

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Visible_Witness_884@reddit

We are also a smaller company - I just recently started here and there's no control of anything. People just had old PCs lying at home or in drawers at random. The company where we buy our hardware also offers lifecycle management and ewaste management as well as data destruction. I sent off everything I collected over the first 6 months and they handled it for free and even sent a little money back for a couple laptops that were graded high enough for refurb.

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Kritchsgau@reddit

It gives all staff an opportunity to purchase instead of the IT dept being favoured i guess. And cash gets donated to a charity we work with. Asset management is fairly important with us so all its movement is tracked carefully too.

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much_longer_username@reddit

We asked about selling the nicer "ewaste", and accounting didn't want to deal with it. Basically told us not to waste their time and that once it was written off, all they cared about is that it went away - the particulars were of little interest. We used to roll through the cube farm offering people free machines. Nobody wanted them, I think because they assumed they must be worse than the machines on their desk, which sucked. Some of the machines on offer were pretty respectable, especially once you stripped off the corporate bloatware. Some were BEEFY. No takers.

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Ketalon1@reddit

Ah thats seems much better with the charity aspect than with how we manage things and just either ewaste it or IT staff takes it for free. We're a smaller company and im finishing up the setup of our asset management so in the future we'll do a better job at that. There has been a lot of ownership change and no really 'good' lead sys admin until I got promoted and could actually have authority to set this stuff up. I got hired peak covid and they were just giving out equipment to people so they can work from home without logging it so this asset management projects been a ton of frustrating work lol

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agent_fuzzyboots@reddit

Are we talking ebay or certified refurbished? Because I did a compromise with my former customer, sell laptops on eBay that has been to China instead of scrapping them. Personally if I don't know the history then I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

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jasonheartsreddit@reddit

Buy it, but wipe it like it's the shittiest asshole you've ever seen.

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Codetard1@reddit

Just replace a battery then

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Maraxius1@reddit

Indeed, even when ordering refurbished machines I always order a new battery and replace it at the time as in my experience refurbished or renewed usually have poor battery life (even when they claim to give them new batteries). Usually you can get a knock off after market one for $20-50 range, and if the one that came with the used machine is working fine, then you have a spare for a year or two down the road.

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TinderSubThrowAway@reddit

If the battery is easily replaced. Many no longer have the battery you just pop put and drop the new one in without disassembling the whole thing.

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jmbpiano@reddit

The death of snap-in batteries is one of my biggest pet peeves of the industry. That said, while it's not as easy as it used to be, Dells at least still make it reasonably easy. The support site even has comprehensive service manuals with a section for each replaceable component of the laptop that illustrates where every screw you need to remove is and the best order to do it. Then it's just a quick unplug/re-plug and reassemble. For the battery, it's usually just a matter of removing the plastic panel from the bottom of the device and then the battery is right there.

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CeeMX@reddit

Really miss that. Still have a x200 Thinkpad around that had a dead battery, just hot swap it, done. Later models (T450s) even had two batteries, one internal, one external, so you could actual how swap the battery during operation, that was so cool!

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mithoron@reddit

Eh, removing the backplate and three more screws is acceptable difficulty. Outside of a devices built like a surface and held together by dipping the whole damn thing in glue that's about as bad as I've seen. The framing and connectors required to have an external isn't really worth the weight and consumers aren't willing to put up with the extra thickness.

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SilentSamurai@reddit

Yeah, that's been a crime to see over the years. God forbid we don't try to cut down on e-waste just a little.

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SiXandSeven8ths@reddit

All the HP Elitebooks have a replaceable battery. I know because I replace them all the time.

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awnawkareninah@reddit

Even disassemble doesn't take long if it's not the kind where you have to start removing parts for screws.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

How expensive is a battery replacement for these notebooks?

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awnawkareninah@reddit

You can do them on old dells for like $50 and the hardest part is not losing the screws for the body.

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McClouds@reddit

That's the perfect use case for the bonus screws left over from the previous battery replacements.

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kilkenny99@reddit

We used to have Dell e7440s & 7450s - on those you can swap the battery like a cartridge. Slide a release switch & pop out the old battery, snap in the new one, done. Which was good because we had a pretty high defect rate after 3 years or so the batteries used to swell up. Replacement batteries were pretty cheap as you mentioned too.

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ajscott@reddit

Even the ones with internal batteries are easy to swap as long as you're using the business line models. 6-10 captive screws on the bottom panel and then 2-4 for the battery itself. Takes about 3 minutes if you've done it a few times.

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winky9827@reddit

Magnetic screw bowl

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Sporkfortuna@reddit

I find that the majority of laptops I've seen come around lately have had captive screws on the bottom panel, which is great. Lenovo, Dell, and HP.

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Exploding_Testicles@reddit

Lenovo laptops are great ( i own 2 personally) as they are meant to be easily serviced. And you can find 3rd party batteries that will fit them just fine.. but I would recommend OEM. Google the model to find the battery cost.

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pdp10@reddit

The big issue is that OEM batteries dry up around the 5-year mark. For that matter, what' the best path to buy Dell OEM parts if you're not in their warranty program and just need parts? We've had some legacy-fleet Optiplex SFF PSUs dying, but the replacement units on the market aren't OEM.

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2drawnonward5@reddit

Just paid under $40 for a 68Wh Latitude and now it'll go about 7 hours with regular use. 5480, several years old but kicking hard.

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Codetard1@reddit

To be honest it depends. I've bought new 72Wh original battery for my Lenovo ThinkPad T480 for $85

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Done_a_Concern@reddit

A company we do support for bought a bunch of refurbed thinkpads. They are terrible and have constant issues ranging from CMOS errors to Battery to other BIOS errors. I don't know if its just thinkpads but IMO you save the cost of the laptop but you pay for that in the hours you spend fixing issues with them

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Individual_Fun8263@reddit

Keep your new systems on a 4-5 year replacement cycle and you'll eventually generate your own "used" laptops for light work and loaners, or places where you just need a web terminal or whatever. Keep a few spares so you don't waste your time repairing these though, just turf them if they have issues. After a year sell or donate them when the next batch of hand me downs comes in.

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RCTID1975@reddit

I don't recommend keeping more than a small handful (based on employee count) of old machines. Otherwise, they tend to end up as "permanent temporaries" and are cycled back into use. The entire point of having a hardware lifecycle is to remove and dispose of devices before they start failing and causing loss of production and increase in support costs.

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PhantomKrel@reddit

If I was it would be for home server use that is really it or maybe if I had free energy than maybe a array of mining systems even if they suck with free energy in theory I would be in profit at some point depending how much it actually costed me outta pocket per each unit and if it’s even worth it.

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Single-Space-8833@reddit

Depends where you buy them, if you buy them directly from the vendor via an outlet you are in good shape, ebay is a bad idea except for servers as there are tons and tons of excellent refurbished servers on Ebay that could save an IT budget thousands.

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BarzTheOrange@reddit

Hell no. People will absoluytely cheap the fuck out on crap hardware and keeping it around forever. It's a constant struggle to trash all the old useless crap and get some new stuff in there regularly. It's the most annoying part of the job. People are happier and more productive with newer shit.

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DrAculaAlucardMD@reddit

Used? No. Refurbished for personal use? Yes. Company use? Not a damn chance.

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Visible_Witness_884@reddit

I just had a meeting recently with a company that offered "remanufactured" laptops - where they take in some specific models that are Win11 compatible, plentiful, have BIOS updates for about 3 years from now, and basically redo the entire thing. They fix any scratches on the screen, recoat the chassis, shine up the keyboard etc., so that it literally is almost indistinguishable from a new machine. Batteries are 80% minimum. There's even an ISO standard for this now. They also provide them with 3 year on-site warranty through the same vendors that drive around handling those for Dell, Lenovo etc., normally. I liked the notion, because the problem with refurb is that grading is highly subjective and you get no on-site warranty and so on. I'm going to request a couple machines for testing purposes to see if they're able to work for us.

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LowMight3045@reddit

I’ve had good luck with refurbished units

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Visible_Witness_884@reddit

Sure, they could be perfectly fine. But the immediate visual state and warranty is the primary concern.

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doctorevil30564@reddit

No, refurbished is fine for my own purposes, but I need warranty's for gear that gets issued to other employees. This statement is due to employees that would be able to break an anvil by walking barefoot over it.

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NoReallyLetsBeFriend@reddit

Lenovo outlet still comes with a 1 year warranty btw

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doctorevil30564@reddit

I wouldn't have a problem with that. With the exception of one Thinkpad x1 carbon that I am still trying to coordinate with the repair technician to come onsite to fix (backlight for display has failed), I have not had any other issues with any of the other Lenovo Thinkpad or think books I have purchased and deployed.

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Upper-Bath-86@reddit

I wouldn't buy a used laptop. It's too risky,

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Material_Attempt4972@reddit

I always get ex-corp thinkpads. I have a habit of dropping them so they're cheap enough to replace.

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MightyMusic@reddit

Homeuse, sure! Anything else, no. But there are buyers ofc, since it's not glorified e-waste.

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poultryinmotion1@reddit

Dell Latitudes for personal use all day. Buy an aftermarket batter and save yourself hundreds over buying new.

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WlOOSws@reddit

For peronal use, yes.

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ninja-wharrier@reddit

For personal use, definitely. I am looking for a T480 to replace my creaking Fujitsu.

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rootofallworlds@reddit

My previous employer loved buying refurb. For desktops it worked well, with the caveat that reimaging was the easiest way to set them up. *So many* refurbishers don’t know about audit mode and would deliver PCs with the OOBE completed and a passwordless administrator account created. (Nowadays it’d probably be set up with their own hotmail account or something.) For laptops, ugh. Terrible battery life and complete lack of consistency. Somewhere buying refurb probably also wants to do repairs in-house and that doesn’t really work when you have a dozen different laptop models.

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directorofit@reddit

don't do it. you don't know what the power policy were on those...

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DifferentArt4482@reddit

why would one buy a laptop with a bad battery? if the battery is renewed why not.

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rufos_adventure@reddit

lenovo scares me. had a lenovo 10 inch tablet that would go to sleep and never turn on. also heard they might have back door access to ccp.

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TitsGiraffe@reddit

Yeah, definitely for mine or internal use, but I'd be hesitant about giving it to clients. I've found the few Latitudes I've had to crack open to be very easy to work on if you wanted to pop in a new battery though.

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myrianthi@reddit

I buy refurbs. It's not often when one dies or malfunctions and it's cheaper to buy a bunch of extra computers to quickly swap out with the money that you would have otherwise spend on warranties. Just be mindful where you source your refurbs.

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-SPOF@reddit

If this for my personal computer it makes sense.

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jkelley41@reddit

I ONLY buy used laptops for personal use. Absolutely not for business use.

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identicalBadger@reddit

I’d buy almost any used tier 1 laptop provided there was warranty on it from the seller. Or if it still had factory warranty. Except the XPS. Every one of those that rolled across my desk at my old job had so many random issues

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mini4x@reddit

> XPS. Consumer grade laptop, shouldn't be used in an enterprise anyways,

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SquizzOC@reddit

So many just don’t understand this.

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much_longer_username@reddit

I guess we got lucky when I was still doing desktops. We only had fifty or so but other than some issues with a shitty model of WiFi card that cost us about five minutes and three bucks each in hardware to fix, they were nice machines for my org.

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SilentSamurai@reddit

"Why should running a business be expensive?" - many CEOs who also wonder why nothing works.

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pdp10@reddit

On what exactly do you base that assessment? The L321X, [L322X](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Dell-XPS-13-L322X-Ultrabook.89375.0.html), first generation XPS 13 were built even better than today's XPS. It's admittedly not recent experience, but then most people's vehement brand opinions aren't recent experience, either. The XPS laptops aren't built for upgradability or repair, but then neither are Macs. The repairable thin-and-light used to be the Latitude 7000-series.

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mini4x@reddit

We used to be a dell shop and the Lattitude / Precision laptops are the Enterprise grade offerings.

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julianz@reddit

I've bought refurbed Dell and HP laptops a few times for the kids, they have worked out fine. The ones I've bought have had no battery issues. I had one where the touchpad buttons were in rough condition out of the box and the company exchanged it without an issue.

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Nick-Andros@reddit

HP has a certified refurbished laptop program you could look into. [https://www.hp.com/us-en/services/workforce-solutions/workforce-computing/renew-solutions.html](https://www.hp.com/us-en/services/workforce-solutions/workforce-computing/renew-solutions.html)

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TEverettReynolds@reddit

I am typing this on an 11-year-old Dell Lattitude 6430 purchased new in 2013. Since then, I upgraded the disk to SSD, maxed out the RAM to 16 GB, and replaced the CPU fan once. YMMV.

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rosmaniac@reddit

I've been buying used Dell Precision for over ten years. Solid machines, and it's possible to get them really inexpensively. Choose reputable sellers with excellent ratings and a long presence and you'll likely do really well. Over the years I've bought Precision M65 (Latitude D820), Precision M4300 (Latitude D830), Precision M4400, M6500, M6700, 7720, and 7740. All have been good deals.

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redwing88@reddit

We buy refurbished units but they are the top of the line x1 for Lenovo, and Precision line for Dell. I can usually buy 2 of the refurb unit vs the cost of a new one. Plus with deployment being seamless with intune it’s easy to move a user if there is a issue.

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ensum@reddit

I've bought refurbed Dell's from Dell's outlet center or w/e. I've had good luck. Mostly try to stick to desktops but I've certainly bought some precisions and they've been fine. I try to not buy anything more than 2-3 years old. You can find some good deals if you're lucky.

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Obvious-Jacket-3770@reddit

Old company I worked at in my first job did this... It was hell. 2011 buying PCs from 2003.

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usa_reddit@reddit

Ask yourself this question, who is on the hook for support when they fail? YOU! Does laptop failure and performance has a negative impact on the company and productivity? YES! LIFE IS TOO SHORT FOR BAD TOOLS. DO RUN YOUR COMPANY ON GARBAGE! Buy the best laptops and in 3-years sell them just like these dudes are doing to some sucker sysadmin that wants to destroy his company and waste money.

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vertexsys@reddit

None of that is true if you buy from a real vendor of refurbished gear with warranties and overnight replacement.

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RussEfarmer@reddit

When the company's got no money ebay delivers in a pinch, just do your homework on the listings you buy from Haven't had any issues but obviously it's not ideal

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WeekendNew7276@reddit

Certified refurbished, not used.

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CuteSharksForAll@reddit

Would we as an organization buy used laptops? Never. Besides any potential security risk, you assume all the economic risk of defective hardware. Employee downtime plus your technicians time means that even a small percentage increase in the failure rate would mean a significant amount in lost time to the organization. This doesn’t even account for the extra time to onboard the devices, capturing and uploading the hashes to Autopilot, testing the devices, dealing with the devices which have BIOS passwords on them you can’t clear, cleaning, then re-imaging. The only way I see this working is if you get really good refurbs and you only support a few dozen users so you have the time to make sure they are in great working order before you set up users on them. Large organizations it would be sabotaging themselves, especially if you ever have to explain that in an IT security audit

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chopsui101@reddit

all my personal computers are used off ebay......upgrade the ram, new hard drive and a fresh copy of linux and i'm ready to go

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daven1985@reddit

For work use never. If we need a device for a staff member, it comes with NBD Warranty and Support. I refuse to give a staff member anything else. Whenever I have an Executive argue about cost, I ask if they would be okay using an old crappy device or having it down for days due to breakage. When they say no, I then ask why the others should not have the same experience they do. I had one Executive who said not everyone gets the same treatment. So we gave the new hire a crap device (I spoke to them about this as setting an example, and we will get him a great device soon, he is onboard). When the Executive asked why the new hire wasn't performing well, we said it was because his device was old and slow, and we had taken a great new hire and restricted his ability. Suddenly, I got approval to buy him a new device. Basically I have a procedure at work that any gear we use must have a warranty/service contract. The only expectations are things like TVs for digital signage etc, and we must maintain a 1 spare for every 50 units if they aren't under warranty.

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gojira_glix42@reddit

Thinkpad yep. Those things last for EVER. Dells? Xps probably, precision eh depends on price and specs. I stay way the hell away from HP in general.

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TimTimmaeh@reddit

No piece of hardware without enterprise warranty! I know users with broken laptops that got send a technician multiple times because of hardware failure … to their home! Especially with those „work from anywhere“ policies nowadays it’s worth every penny and you safe labor.

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EastKarana@reddit

At my old MSP would have a client continually buying used laptops from ManyLaptops in Sydney. It was always a shit show. They would buy these laptops then complain to us about performance. My answer was always to buy something new.

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mr_lab_rat@reddit

For personal use absolutely. I can get a $1500 laptop for $400. Even if I have to replace the battery and dome plastics it’s still worth it.

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DarthtacoX@reddit

I've worked for a company that did seasonal work and for the build up in fall we had a deal with a company to lease used laptops. It worked out well because we would go from 500ish people to 4000 in a matter of 2 months then back to 500ish 4 months later.

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impolite_bomber99@reddit

Yes for personal, no for business.

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MonolithOfTyr@reddit

Deployments ALWAYS get new unless it's a desktop that'll do simple things.

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messageforyousir@reddit

It is easy to justify only buying new: the devices could be compromised... There's a reason smart companies replace all their hardware after they're hit in an attack. The hardware itself can not be trusted. Anyone want to buy a used Fortinet firewall?

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AbleAmazing@reddit

Personal use? Yes. Enterprise use? Absolutely not.

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MrCertainly@reddit

Company use, goodness fuck no. 100% procurement contract with a service plan. Everything we have is under warranty. If not being leased and we own it outside the service cycle, it's considered "not for critical business use". In other words, it's a junker/tinkerer laptop only to be used in situations where there's a zero cost of failure or downtime. Or the teams using the bespoke custom-fitted machines are fully aware of the additional cost and time needed for maintenance & repair. And that's fine having junker/tinkerers for one or two machines, but having a stack of hundreds of Core2Duo laptops is just a mountain of ewaste that no one wants. Tech changes so fast, it's just easier to lease what we need. We "make $things"/"sell $things"...not do mundane laptop repair nor storage of totally useless assets. For the slightly higher cost per unit, there's a very realized labor and time benefit. ----- Personal use, sure why the fuck not? I wouldn't ever rely on them as a primary machine, especially without a backup unit ready to go. But there are times a family member needs a second machine for something, or you need something to tinker on, or a spare Windows machine on standby in an Mac household, etc. I've gotten a few Dell 8th gen touchscreen i5 latitudes with 16gb ram/512gb ssds @ ~$200 each. They'll run pretty much any non-intensive thing I throw at them (web, office, light gaming, etc)....and they're Win 11 compatible. There's enough ram and storage for them to be effective even at mid-range workloads too. 1920x1080 IPS touchscreens are totally usable. The worst parts of them are usually the cooling (they run hot with louder than average fans), poor keyboard, and lousy trackpads. I can mitigate the last two with external keyboard + mouse. And given how little we use them on a normal basis, most of us at home are fine with the crappy aspects of them. It's hard to compete with a ~$800-1200 Macbook Air anymore, given how much those machines give in terms of excellent performance, battery life, keyboard, and trackpad. But there's always the random time you NEED a Windows machine for a one-off situation.

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NeverDocument@reddit

I've bought refurbs for super cheap for work, they come with a 1 year guarantee. "used" I'll pass for work. For personal: it depends on what random project i think I'm going to do with it, but in reality it'll just go to the laptop pile and in 3-7 years i'll toss it.

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Opening_Career_9869@reddit

No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man

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thenerdy@reddit

I definitely would

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Det_23324@reddit

We buy refurbished with a warranty. It actually has went really well in the past couple years. The warranty has also come in handy several times and not cost us a penny.

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ohyeahwell@reddit

No way. Lenovo Thinkpad T16 7840U/16GB/ir cam/touch are $850~

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Upstairs_Street6394@reddit

Just bought a thinkpad to run Linux for £150, i5 8gb ram, works really well and happy with the purchase, I guess it depends on what you need if for

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dustojnikhummer@reddit

For home use, sure. For corporate use, in specific circumstances yes. Shared machines and so on. Not for people's daily workstations.

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ncc74656m@reddit

As others have said, if they're in an "expendable" position - low criticality conference rooms, shared "reception" devices, clocking computers, etc, I am all for it - though these are usually desktops. Laptops are a little too vulnerable to damage and just up and dying - especially a lot of Dells - to where I'd be more hesitant. The only case I could see would be like a shared field device where the user returns it every day, and where the device dying doesn't create a critical interruption. What with things like Autopilot available, it's SO fast and easy to just deploy a new device, drop shipping if needed, that it does alleviate a lot of the risks.

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No_Size_1765@reddit

No

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rcp9ty@reddit

Used no... Refurbished with warranty absolutely. Dell refurbished is a great place to get great deals on workstations and desktops and they always have 40-50% off coupons and if you're on their email list you can usually get free warranty coupons as well. Sometimes you'll need to replace a battery here and there but otherwise it's all good.

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Backlash5@reddit

I love used laptops. ThinkPads rock.

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jake04-20@reddit

Depends on the use case. If they're going to be assigned to an individual and if that laptop shits the bed, their production will be hindered/at a standstill and it will impact business production until the laptop is replaced, then no. On a side note, aren't the Dell Latitudes the "low tier" crap? Or is that middle of the road? I prefer the precision workstations.

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vasaforever@reddit

Those are the only types of laptops I buy for personal use. My main windows laptop is an HP Elitebook series and my personal MacBooks are an early 2011 model and a 2017 model.

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IdioticEarnestness@reddit

I work at a car dealership. I buy used Dell Latitudes and Optiplexes for everyone through EPC. I buy them crammed full of RAM, i5 or i7, with 512GB SSD. I buy them at 2-3 years old, cycle them out at around 7 years and then sell the laptops to employees for $100 and donate the desktops to a not-for-profit that teaches kids how to use Linux. Out of 120 endpoints I maybe have two or three crap out a year. Because they're inexpensive, I always have three or more spares in my office ready to go. It works for us.

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fadedblackleggings@reddit

Personal use - Sure. Lenovo Thinkpads are workhorse machines, that last forever.

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mcopco@reddit

I think this largely depends on budget and use. For a Fortune 500 company with 100's or 1000's of computers used would be a nightmare to source and setup plus maintain since they would all likely have different configurations. I owned a small restaurant which had 3 desktops and two laptops plus servers. I would have no problem in that scenario buying used. Personally obviously that's all up to you and I don't see an issue there. But for big companies supply chain attacks are a real thing and I would worry very much that this person selling me these laptops might have nefarious ideas. But I am a worrier by nature. And to make sure thousands of used devices are safe to put on the domain would be more effort then the savings to me.

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rongway83@reddit

for Homelab or personal? sure of course. I'd still overwrite the OS no matter what they put on it. Enterprise? They should be paying for actual licenses, support, etc, not worth the headache at scale.

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salpula@reddit

I have not purchased a new laptop for myself since I purchased an iBook G4 in 2002. Used thinkpads all day long. Reliable, repairable, minimal proprietary roadblocks. I don't even think I had to flash the firmware to upgrade them to Wi-Fi6 cards like I did on the Asus laptops. Most of the laptops have come from used office supplies but some of them were also ones that friends or family were going to discard but needed only minor repairs.

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AV1978@reddit

Nope. Never for company use. Too many unknown variables you can’t control

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dracotrapnet@reddit

Refurbs at work yea. We just buy multiples so we can return anything that fails the first week on the bench. You can't be in a hurry if you are buying refurbs. Refurbs at home, absolutely, I have 3 refurb laptops to my left, roomie has a refurb SFF Lenovo. Heck I've bought a refurb server. IMO, I can buy a 40-60 dollar battery if it needs a new one.

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Xulbehemoth@reddit

I like both the Elitebook and Probook laptops. I would buy and use one personally.

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user1100100@reddit

Absolutely. I've found some very good and reliable eBay vendors sell both used and refurbished gear. I've deployed notebooks, desktops, and especially server gear over the last 20 years and generally achieve the same lifespan as new gear. Of course, one of the key aspects that has allowed me to do this is user requirements are not that demanding. We are not refining animated films or developing new chemical compounds for industrial use on my job. So it's mostly office, accounting, Adobe suite, and browser software. My main personal notebook computer right now is an 8-year-old Dell core i5 running Fedora 40 which has been upgraded steadily since probably back to fedora 25 or 28. I bought it used for $500 in September of 2015. Several years ago I put in a new 1 TB SSD hard drive only because I wanted the freedom to cart around a little more data.

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TheLightingGuy@reddit

The only thing I buy used for the company are micro desktops that are only used for signage in the break rooms and lobbies around our offices.

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HardLearner01@reddit

For personal use? I never buy new laptops; I always go for used ones.

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butterbal1@reddit

Personally? Absolutely. My current personal laptop is a Dell 3541 that I picked up for $300 a year ago after retiring a 12 year old e6530 and couldn't be happier. New batteries on amazon are around $50 a pop and should be swapped out every 2-4 years. For the office - No way in hell.

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JimmyScriggs@reddit

We do this occasionally, but 100 percent we replace batteries , CMOS batteries if applicable, and never reuse hard drives.

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bleuflamenc0@reddit

Maybe if they were a year old and a great deal.

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Technical-Message615@reddit

As temp spares, sure. They make great loaners that people will be happy to turn back in.

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malikto44@reddit

Personal use, provided the battery has been replaced? Definitely. For a company? Definitely not. In my experience, laptops are consumable. Even in the best environments where employees just park a laptop on a desk, dust gets in them and they get dusty. Worst case, I have to put the laptop in a freezer or in 110º+ heat for a week to kill the bedbugs. Laptops I do get back , after I ensure insects are dead and I do a physical cleaning, as well as a wipe and reinstall, those tend to be replacements, and spares to have on hand. Once the warranty expires, they are disposed of. Life is too short for out of warranty laptops.

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canadian_sysadmin@reddit

Yeah no. Not worth the hassle. We buy new laptops because they’re…new.

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Zenkin@reddit

I'm going to go against the grain because my company has been buying refurb laptops for more than five years (Dell Latitudes). It's totally fine for the vast majority of cases, and we have two laptops on standby at all times in case someone starts blue screening or something else annoying that our techs don't want to deal with. We have about 70 users in total, do all our imaging with MDT, and we probably have to roll out about one laptop a month on average (it was a lot more last year for our rollout of Windows 11). Managing hardware at this scale is simply not difficult. The TCO that people talk about, much like when I've heard them discuss the TCO of maintaining *server* hardware, has never materialized in any meaningful way. If I was doing this solo, it probably would not be worth it, but even a very small helpdesk can easily stay on top of this stuff.

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Humble-oatmeal@reddit

I bought Lenovo thinkpad used for an year.. its in warranty and in good condition.. my earlier laptop was also Lenovo lasted for 7 years.. You can check the health screen and all the peripherals and can go for used one

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Dizzy_Bridge_794@reddit

I buy used Alienware’s all the time for personal usage.

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Asche77@reddit

Yes. Business Laptops with loooong BIOS support cycles for the win.

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DisMuhUserName@reddit

We've gone Dell outlet for all of our servers & workstations. It's always (until writing this, probably) been a very positive experience.

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Crispy_Jon@reddit

Yes, I buy probooks because of the serial port. It is needed for very old PLC communication, and the serial dongles don't work as well. Plus they break them. Hit them with robots. Drop them. Economical way to keep things going. All other users get new

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gamebrigada@reddit

No but I'll sell you my used laptops :)

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_Robert_Pulson@reddit

I worked at a place where we only had refurbished laptops. They were mainly used as thin clients. We had a bunch of loaners on standby if hardware problems happened. If it couldn't be fixed in 30-45 mins, we would just replace them. It can be a significant savings to the IT dept, but it depends on your business needs. We had Dell Latitudes with actual Dell warranty. Whenever something would break, I would get the part shipped, or have a Unisys tech come onsite. The worst case was sending it to the depot, which would take like two weeks or so. I got a new laptop back once. The drawbacks were that they looked used (scuffed, dull), and batteries didn't last too long. We would just buy bigger cell batteries. Outside of that, they just worked. We would replace them every 4-5 years in refreshes.

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herkalurk@reddit

When I was in a super small company we'd shop the dell/hp refurb stores for laptops. Same kind of warranty, just not new. I work for a 70k employee company now. Everything is bought new.

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mwenechanga@reddit

Once upon a time I had a remaining budget that would buy 20 new laptops, but I had 25 that were painfully beyond EOL. I bought 40 used laptops and deployed the 25, and we had 15 shiny newly imaged laptops on the shelf anytime anyone needed a loaner. Then one of the 25 came in unreparable and I swapped it for loaner permanently and tossed it. The CFO had a temper tantrum that it didn’t have a 3 year warranty, even though 3 months earlier I showed him my dilemma and he agreed that buying spares rather than worrying about warranty work would be smart. After that I just budgeted for what I needed with warranties and then buy what they let me have and tell them the CFO won’t let me replace anything else.

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O_O--ohboy@reddit

No -- not even for personal use. You do not know what the MAC address of that hardware is associated with. Spying programs in the US are such that you are associating your data with anything that was previously associated with that MAC address. Maybe the previous owner was doing fraud or CP stuff. I'm all for reclaiming stuff and have even pulled hardware out of dumpsters but be cautious.

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TopRedacted@reddit

It depends on the budget. If they know up front that used is the only way to do what they want in the budget and the boss says it's fine by email yeah. Someone will have to say yes to the lower up front cost but higher ongoing cost of not having a warranty.

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BespokeChaos@reddit

It depends what source I’m buying from. I have no issues refurbished from reliable sources for business if it’s for a sales person that just needs to send emails and follow up with people. However for the price, you can find better new computers.

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jamesaepp@reddit

As always, it depends. Is the price right? And before everyone yells at me - "price" is a loose term which includes helpdesk hours spent swapping out user laptops/equipment. If you have a solid reimaging and spare count of laptops and can get a new user up and running inside 30 minutes.....it's worth asking if you can save by going refurb. As always, exposure *and* impact need to be considered when talking about *total risk*. Totally WFH workforce? I'd very much lean towards "No".

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merRedditor@reddit

Dell refurbs are priced almost as high as new, and it makes no sense. Amazon refurbs have really spotty reviews with things like battery life being terrible right off the bat. There does seem to be some room for bargains in the Dell Latitude line. I'm guessing that these are coming out of corporate laptop leases or something, since they're the business laptop line. I would trust the quality of manufacturer refurbs in general, but not so much of third party. There is the bonus of being able to get older OSes with third-party refurbs if you use Windows, though.

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arominus@reddit

Not at all dude, I got some 11th gen intel latitudes for 275 last week and some 10th gen desktops for 200. You gotta play their game but you can get smokin deals on decent office level hardware there.

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MudKing123@reddit

Go new with warranty. It will save you many many hours of troubleshooting

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arominus@reddit

Dell refurbished, then toss a new SSD in it, outside of clients with supply chain controls this is fine (ie don't do it for a DOD contractor lol).

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nighthawke75@reddit

Client bought 20 refurbished HP laptops. Seven bricked right off the bat. Two weeks later, 3 more bit the dirt. The CTO was furious. A couple of execs tried to finger me for breaking them, but nothing came out of that considering my reputation.

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The_Shadowghost@reddit

Bought a 2015 Macbook in 2021. Great machine in good condition still working like day one. 4hrs of battery life are still there today unless im using the dGPU. Would do it again. Especially with Apple Devices. Also my company buyed used PCs during the pandemic and they too are working fine. However we did buy those through a refurbisher.

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No_Consideration7318@reddit

I typically do not buy used for anything.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit

I have done this, but wouldn't everywhere. It depends on the use case, scale, and what you mean by "used". If you are a sysadmin and sole IT guy for a small company and a slight uptick in hardware repairs fits into your slack time, maybe it's worth saving the money. If the fleet is large enough that an uptick in repairs or swaps is not within the rounding error and will actually increase your needed head count, it is not worth it. Also, simple comparisons of the costs of buying used and factoring in repairs/replacements/spares vs. cost of buying new with warranties is only valid for in-office workers and anyone living close, and only if you have OneDrive or folder redirection working & a proper imaging solution. If you are treating hardware as disposable and it takes 5-10 minutes to get someone fully operational on a spare after a total hardware failure, I can't justify doubling the endpoint budget to buy new and prevent a few failures per year on a small fleet. I can definitely justify new for a salesman who flies out to meet big clients, or a remote worker 100 miles away. Their hardware failures cost a lot more than the repair/replacement parts.

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badlybane@reddit

As long as it's not from a pawn shop and it 's some sort of warranty with it.

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9jmp@reddit

In production I would only buy dells with pro support. It pays for itself 10x vs refurbs. My current boss just ordered twenty refurbs, two of them were bad just on arrival, I bet another 4-5 will be dead within two years. Complete time sink and waste of money.

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thecomputerguy7@reddit

For a few spares, or “utility laptops” that you know will be abused, absolutely. My current job keeps the best ones from the previous hardware refresh cycle as spares. End users in areas like maintenance get something that handles their work, but nothing too flashy/new. They’re pretty rough on them, and usually the warranty is declined “due to abuse” anyways. For everybody else, I’d prefer a warranty.

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lugnercity@reddit

personally i've never had issues with used / refurbed ThinkPad (T-series, or X1) I'm using one right now!Maybe i was just lucky but at work - hell no - imagine finding out all the different problems during deployment and having to fix that mess.

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A7XfoREVer15@reddit

Depends on the usecase. I’m buying 10 laptops that are going to replace current workstations? No. I’m buying 3 laptops for employees to work remotely while they’re out of state and won’t see too much use? Yeah.

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Matro-se@reddit

I have been doing that for years for myself and my closest family. Sometimes I upgrade RAM and replace drives, but usually not. I find that the quality of the pro-laptops are better then cheap customer facing laptops. They usually last years without an issue.

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MedicatedLiver@reddit

For myself? Used EliteBook/ProBook and Precisions all the way. I \*still\* rock my Precision M4700 but man, even that beast of an IvyBridge CPU is starting to feel the pains. For work? You get whatever good deal I can get from my vendor for the machine you need. Which we have a grand total of two laptops, myself and one other person. I have a Lenovo Yoga (tablet mode is a godsend when you have to hold the thing in one hand), and the other needs to run CAD software, so good 1080p+ display and an nVidia Quatro it is.

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maggotses@reddit

No

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Guru_Meditation_No@reddit

My daily driver is the Dell XPS we bought in 2016. Computers last forever now. We have the money to buy new gear for new staff, so that's what we do. No formal refresh policy. Folks will run for several years and only swap equipment when they feel the hassle is worthwhile. We're 99% Macs. My Dell is a Linux workstation.

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Chipware@reddit

I've been buying Amazon renewed laptops and desktops for my clients for years. I get one DOA, or otherwise unfit for us for every 10 I buy. Amazon takes care of the return process nicely. Haven't had a problem with them and my clients like paying 80% less than new.

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Dsnordo@reddit

No. Why bother?

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curi0us_carniv0re@reddit

I have never bought a new laptop in my whole life. Every single laptop I use is something that I've been given from a customer / client and I repaired

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ExceptionEX@reddit

Laptop's now are designed to last for about 3 years. With Batteries being the first to go. You are likely just buying other peoples problems or hardware on the edge of failure. Unless your company has no budget, and a great need for new hardware I wouldn't do it.

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DL72-Alpha@reddit

Sure as hell will. And then immediately put Ubuntu on it.

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Newbosterone@reddit

The nice thing about buyer laptops that are a generation old is that distros have found and fixed major bugs. 3-4 generations back, some hw might not be supported (rare); current generation, someone else might not have fixed your bug already.

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Stryker1-1@reddit

I buy refurbished laptops and desktops all the time, they come with a 1 year warranty and are a great cost savings.

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QuiteFatty@reddit

For personal use, absolutely. For company use, fuck no.

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thepfy1@reddit

We buy 'refurbished' laptops at work. Why? Lack of budget, even though if someone orders a laptop they pay for it. If they break the laptop (frequent, some laptop carts are poorly designed and allow users to try and close the screen = smashed screen). I say 'refurbished' as we've had some which look like bananas. Some batches up to 20% are rejected It keeps the beancounters happy.

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redhotmericapepper@reddit

Hell no. Wayyyyyyy too many issues, esp the charging circuits. People leave laptops plugged in for months on end. This not only fries the batteries, but the charging circuits that feed said batteries, making new batteries ineffective and a complete waste of money. Just buy new laptops, with warranties. Their shelf/use life are limited anyway, compared to desktops that can actually be serviced much easier and more cost effectively.

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Icolan@reddit

Personally, for me? Sure, I am unlikely to though because I prefer gaming laptops and most people don't get rid of those until they are good and worn out. For work? No. Only equipment that is new from the manufacturer with a full manufacturer's warranty on it.

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schenr@reddit

For a company wide refresh - no way. But for a few special cases it can make sense. For example, if a whole department with a standard make/model hires more staff. New machines no longer available, it makes sense to get manufacturer renewed to keep uniform hardware and eliminate questions on why the new person got a better machine. Also used hardware for employees who are repeat offenders in damaging their gear, unless their department head is willing to constantly pay for new out of their budget.

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AnonymooseRedditor@reddit

Depends on the use case. For general office use? Absolutely not I want something with warranty and support. I used to work for an oil and gas company, we’d send field personnel out to the oil patch or mines etc and they needed laptops for data collection and managing the equipment. I 100% would buy refurbished Panasonic toughbooks for this. I’d make sure it had a new battery and ssd. They would cost less than $500 each and I’d just buy them in bulk. They didn’t have any access to corporate resources, had a standard image with data collection and management tools. If one got broken or died? Oh well grab another identical machine from the shop.

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Turdulator@reddit

Nah, I’m not an electrical engineer, I can’t open them up and see what has or has not been soldered to the MoBo. The less sure I am about how many hands have touch the gear the less secure it is. And then there’s the reliability concerns, it’s like buying a used car that used to be a rental care, you have no idea what’s has been done to these things.

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WayneH_nz@reddit

We have an ex-lease supplier here in New Zealand that will replace with new OEM batteries AND provide a full 2 year wty. If you are a commercial customer they will supply wty replacement in advance. These were nz$3-5k machines when new (elitebooks with all the trimmings etc) i7 16gb/32gb 512gbnv for nz$700-900 with W11pro removed from AAD if applicable. Add a new battery for $60-80 and you have a beast. Nz$1k is approx us$600. They buy them by the container load from the US and ship them here.

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Pilsner33@reddit

Yes. From the Dell refurb or Apple refurb programs. Maybe from Swappa. But other than that, no.

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Snoo_73402@reddit

Our IT dept buys almost exclusively used lenovo laptops from a reputable reseller. We are provided a warranty by the reseller and these laptops are no older than 3 years or so and we have very few issues.

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joshuamarius@reddit

I've done both, including open-box items that sat on shelves at different stores, such as Best Buy. In over 20 years in IT was has worked for me is Benchmarks and Stress Tests. If the PC passes the tests then it is highly unlikely it has a failure. I've saved myself thousands of dollars buying used, and the companies I do IT even more.

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theKtechex@reddit

My company bought a crap ton of used Dell Latitude for Covid, they aren't the best in terms of appearance but they've held up pretty good, only a dozen or so have turned spicy.

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BarelyAirborne@reddit

I love refurbished Thinkpads. All the bloatware comes stripped out, and all you need to add is a new large capacity battery. You can also upgrade the memory and disk.

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Terrible-Bear3883@reddit

Yup, done it a few times for personal use, the laptop I'm typing on at the moment is 9 years old (and the battery still works fine), I've added more RAM to it so it's got 16GB and removed the DVD to put a 2nd SSD in a carrier tray, cosmetically it looks like the original DVD is fitted but its now just a slide in plate, hiding the 2nd drive. I run Ubuntu on it and it does everything I need including streaming Xbox cloud when I want to play games remotely from the Xbox. The laptop I used previously to this was another great bargain (Lenovo dual core Centrino), it came with no OS (which I didn't want), it was the first time I installed an SSD and the laptop still works fine, I upgraded as the current one HP i5 was one of those offers that couldn't be refused.

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Simmangodz@reddit

Yeah, most corporate lsptops are not treated well if I'm honest. He have a lot of battery replacements for our elitebooks. Most users seem to keep the laptops docked at 100%, or regularly discharge to 0% causing significant battery wear. We have elitebooks in IT, but literally none of us have needed to do a battery swap. It was the topic of a meeting we had recently. So, to answer you directly, No we would not buy refurbished or used laptops for end-user deployment. In IT, we often reuse laptops from our own staff, but we always buy new for the end users.

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Doc_Breen@reddit

If the battery is still ok there's no problem with a used laptop. It's going to get a new OS anyways.

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AtarukA@reddit

We buy used laptops for some of our clients, but used professional ones. This is because they are a company that works with recycling, and they do that because they don't need the latest gen, or the fastest speeds. They're fine just waiting a bit longer. We do set a limit though, the pcs have to be within the last 4 years. We also got another one that works in charity, same thing but it's for a question of price. Still provide the same support though.

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SpiceIslander2001@reddit

Depends on the age and the model (there are certain Dell Latitude models that I would avoid, for example). Batteries are usually pretty easy to replace.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

Tell me of those models

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SpiceIslander2001@reddit

I'd say any from 2017 or 2018 (e.g. any series ending in \*80 or \*90). Though seeing that we're in 2024, you're probably not considering those anyway. Horrible battery problems. Otherwise, actually pretty decent. I still use a Dell Latitude 7490, albeit with a new battery purchased via Amazon.

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SamuelVimesTrained@reddit

Personal use - if the price is right (after i checked cost of new battery) For business: never.

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TapiocaBarry@reddit

Never for work.

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Rocknbob69@reddit

I buy them occasionally from PCLiquidations and have had no issues with them. I generally only buy them for something like a loaner laptop or someone that infrequently needs to work from home.

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jellowiggler-@reddit

We deploy refurb refurbished thinkpads for occasional work from home or travel. They have been really good.

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zqpmx@reddit

For personal use and a small company. Yes. (If the advantages of buying cheap are more than the fiscal incentives to buy or rent new) For a larger company. No.

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rayjaymor85@reddit

I paid $100AUD for a used Latitude 5480 It's been rock solid and gets me out of dual booting so I can use Linux

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tk42967@reddit

I would and have. There's a tech recycler near me that throws them on ebay from time to time. You get them without an OS or hard drive, but no big deal. Battery issue is a non issue for me because my devices are plugged in most of the time. As for professional, we 86 any device as soon as the warranty is over.

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davidm2232@reddit

Absolutely. Our laptop fleet at my old job were exclusively used laptops. We put a few new batteries in but 99% of the time, they were sitting plugged in the docks so batteries were not needed.

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segagamer@reddit

I buy refurbished phones and laptops for anyone for smashes their company phone/laptop to use until then next wave of replacements.

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rUnThEoN@reddit

It depends on a lot of things. We did that in the past and dont regret it, it was a wonderfull way to throw out even older things. Mind you, some of the laptops got used 3 times a year, some of our conditions is horrible. We have 60 laptops unused brand new because of legal conditions. Atm we use the money to buy consumer grade win11 compatible stuff. Otherwise used would still be an option.

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Bebilith@reddit

I bought 6 Elitebook x360 1030 G3. What’s that 5-6 years old? Disposals from work. 3 in use 3 for spare parts. I’m expecting hinge failure or battery swelling but so far they have been trouble free for about a year.

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mini4x@reddit

Hard no.. no warranty and no direct support. That said I have a G2 EliteBook that was a retired unit from my office, and the battery still last a solid 10 hours of email/web/YouTube, type of use.

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Barrerayy@reddit

Absolutely not. But then again I only buy MacBooks for people that need laptops. We only have about 20-25 ppl that require a laptop everyone else are on dual gpu windows workstations

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Thangleby_Slapdiback@reddit

Yes. I did. Dell Latitude 7400. I7, 16gb RAM, 512G NVMe drive. $185. The only problem is a broken thunderbolt port. I don't have any devices to fit that anyway.

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RustyU@reddit

We pretty much only buy refurbished HP laptops.

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JH6JH6@reddit

not used but you could buy refurbished from dell and put a warranty on it.

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awnawkareninah@reddit

Not for work no. I already have enough problems when we have a uniform fleet of new devices. For personal use sure.

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running101@reddit

If you know how the prior owner used it. For example, if it sat on a desk all the time vs being dragged around daily.

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Clivna@reddit

We use [Circular Computing](https://circularcomputing.com/) (T480/T480S) for 95% of computers, and new X1 Carbon / Thinkcentre for the last 5%. We are pretty happy with them and they look brand new for the end user and come with 3 years warrenty.

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dean771@reddit

50 percent battery is completely useless to the point of failing completly

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

TIL. Is it significantly cheaper to replace the battery than to buy the laptop brand new usually?

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dean771@reddit

Not with official parts and servicing from the manufacturer. If you can source and replace it yourself yes

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TinderSubThrowAway@reddit

Personal use, yeah maybe, but company? Nope

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Thebelisk@reddit

Would I buy them for work? Absolutely not. Would I buy them for personal use? Hell nah Would I use one for personal use of it was retired from work and no longer wanted by the company? If it was signed off by Management and free, yes.

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Cheap-Ad-151@reddit

personal use without tpm? probably. with tpm? no.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

Trusted Platform Module? What's wrong with it having TPM? BitLocker is usually enforced via MBAM and I have BitLocker on all of my personal devices altho for the latter I use a huge script to set up BitLocker with a default PIN and then a self-made C# app to change the BitLocker PIN and export the recovery password to an encrypted location

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Cheap-Ad-151@reddit

because it has 0 things to do with security and it\`s only purpose is drm. its trusted platform for corporate not for user. you wont that thing as far from you as possible. it was cracked in 2010, the manufacturer words: "No problem, we know that". You store your passwords(pin) with the machine that can be accessed for about 100k $ added hw and a day. not too far from the notes under the keyboard with the password.

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Cyberlocc@reddit

A lot of strange things are being said here, not a lot of it is really that accurate. The TPM on Intel 8th Gen forward machines is in the CPU it's not cracked, you are correct about the older systems with a hardware TPM, but even remotely recent machines (last 5 years, maybe 6?) It's in the CPU. Bitlocker has a lot of security features, and the TPM is required for Bitlocker. The exploit to leverage the TPM on the hardware models requires physically having the machine and doing alot of modifications. It's not at all like having the notes under the keyboard.

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homelaberator@reddit

Yes. I like old stuff.

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StConvolute@reddit

I pretty much only buy second hand gear for home. I do have a gaming rig that I have purchased/built new. Otherwise it's ex-lease, high end business devices, Linux and a few extra dollars saved. At work though, a hospital, we wouldn't even entertain the idea of second hand devices.

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esgeeks@reddit

Never, it is expensive in the long run. A 50% battery capacity is normal after a few years, but 2-3 hours of battery life is quite low, even for these models.

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JapanesePo5@reddit

Ryzen 7 Thinkpads E16 are $740 a unit. I would buy new

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PoutPill69@reddit

For personal use I've never bought a brand new laptop. Only used. For end-users I've supported I've never bought a used laptop. Only new.

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qkdsm7@reddit

Of ~15 Thinkpads used/certified refurb bought for family and friends, zero failures save for batteries and keyboards. Some of the later models that we've ran at work I'd possibly now know to avoid, but T4xx , Pxx, and X2xx have all been great. No way USB-C power ports are going to go the distance, but here we are.... Starting to get a bit on in age, so watching for the next personal workhorses beyond x280 and t480. On X1's I think I'd want a 6 month warrantee and they'll need to be treated better than say a T460.

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Dangi86@reddit

I have an X250 and that little think never fails, yeah it doesn't have USB-C, but the dock on ebay was pretty cheap.

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Ketalon1@reddit

for personal use I only buy used thinkpads because i like the modularity of them. for work, since i work for a manufacturing company, the shop guys get refurbished chromebooks since all they need to access is the locally hosted webapp to for ERP (enterprise resource planning) software. They get dropped and broken all the time so i just order cheap refurb chromebooks.

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NoradIV@reddit

I get latitudes. Replace battery with whatever I can find on amazon for 50-80$. These laptops last forever.

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Turbulent-Pea-8826@reddit

Not for work. The little bit of cost savings upfront will be more than offset if there is a problem with just one of them. My time is a cost to the business too so the time spent troubleshooting will not be worth it. I am all about being a good steward of company money but also I see them waste far more money on other stupid stuff.

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whatsforsupa@reddit

We but Dell refurbished business machines and have had good luck. The discounts you can get are insane. We got precisions with i9 / 64GB / 2 TB / RTX a4000 cards for like $1600 after discounts

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Bambamtams@reddit

Yes for personal use, worth 100% the money

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iama_bad_person@reddit

My mother still uses a Elitebook 1030 G2 I got for her secondhand from company recycling 3 years ago. Chuck a new battery in there and it's good.

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mojoisthebest@reddit

I've had great luck purchasing used Dell Latitudes off Amazon. Depending on the application it can be a quite inexpensive solution.

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grumpyolddude@reddit

From my experience laptops are in demand, but not desktops. I watch and occasionally buy from government auction sites. Lately lots of stuff that just didn't make the windows 11 compatibility list is up for sale. Latitude laptops get sold right away - still relatively cheap but probably $20-25 each. The optiplex desktops, even the 9x or 90x series can't bring $1 for a lot of 10 of them. All drives have been removed and many times the laptops are missing power adapters. A lot of the stuff looks newer/better than some of my personal stuff I've had for years.

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Biehlinger@reddit

Lenovo? Sure. Dell? Maybe. HP? Hell no.

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Olleye@reddit

No.

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ReptilianLaserbeam@reddit

Corporate laptops usually have a warranty of 3 years (with extended warranty) and are commonly replaced a year after that. So a machine that has been used 5-6 days a week for 4 years is going to have battery issues, that’s to be expected. Just replace it and go with it

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shwaaboy@reddit

Exec’s get brand new, regardless. For non-critical roles, I buy refurb any day. Dell 7000 series Latitude or OptiPlex 10th Gen i5/16/256, with one year warranty, for a quarter of brand new price? Yes please.

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Nova-Sec@reddit

I’d prefer not to, but if I didn’t have the ability to get a new one then I definitely would!

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Horrigan49@reddit

Sure, you can get good deals. For private use. Just replace the baterry with nonoriginal price for 50-70 bucks And you are good to go.. For Corp, meh, nothing without valid warranty or/And onsite service.

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RiceeeChrispies@reddit

Penny wise and pound foolish springs to mind honestly. Sometimes it works okay, sometimes it doesn't. One thing you can guarantee is the time it doesn't, you will be getting it in the neck.

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Flamingpotato100@reddit

Used to work for an MSP that used refurbished laptops with service contracts from dell I think it’s ok. I give the hand me downs to the interns even though I don’t like to but they make me 🤷‍♂️

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ZestiestPickles@reddit

We sell refurbished T480 and T490 lenovos all the time at my work and people love them

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Nekro_Somnia@reddit

I got myself a used ThinkPad l390 (8th gen i5, 16GB RAM, no SSD) for about 90€ Battery was on its way out, so I replaced it with a new one for about 30€. Plopped in a spare m.2 SSD I had leftover. I basically got a good-ish notebook for around 120€ At that price point I don't really care if it gets dinged or scratched up. Same thing for my significant other. Their 2013 MacBook air was begging us to die. So i got them a used HP Spectre 13-v105ng for 50€, replaced the battery for about the same price. That one came with 16GB RAM, 7th gen i7 and a 1tb m.2 SSD. Both machines are more than sufficient for what they are used for and if anything replaceable kicks the bucket, we got the skills to replace it. Would I recommend that for someone without the knowledge of how to tear down a laptop and replace a battery or SSD? Fuck no. Do I think I made a good deal buying used? Absolutely

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jockey10@reddit

Are you surprised that second-hand laptops have e poor battery life? Why did you think they became "second-hand" goods?

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labdweller@reddit

Laptops, desktops, rack mount servers - I’m the recycling point for E-waste. For batteries, I would replace with a new one or run it without a battery depending on what I need the laptop for/cost of replacement. For myself, I recently made a MacBook with a smashed screen and bloated battery usable by removing those two things. For my child, I repurposed a touchscreen ThinkPad and put a new battery in it.

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NixRocks@reddit

How many are being sold because they are unstable? I've had some last seemingly forever, others that died after just a couple years with random crashes, shutdowns, etc. I wouldn't attempt to sell an unstable laptop but unfortunately not everyone has a good set of ethics. Means it's going to be a crapshoot. Laptops also tend to get a lot of hard use, hands are on them all the time unlike a desktop outside of the rare case where it just sat in someone's Dock on their desk for a couple years. Honestly a New lower end laptop is probably a better bet than an older higher end laptop for probably the same money. And you are more likely to get at least Some warranty.

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maobezw@reddit

I bought a Thinkpad, refurbished, for use as a Host for FantasyGrounds. Totally worth it. I work mostly with Lenovo so i know them good and am convinced of their long lasting quality.

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Obvious-Water569@reddit

Generally no. However, if the situation called for it, I wouldn't completely rule it out. Buying new guarantees a consistent experience, uniformity in warranty/support and the ability to have machines imaged from the supplier (if that floats your boat).

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