• tiramichu@sh.itjust.works
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    18 days ago

    The place to get decent budget laptops is auction sites, second-hand marketplace listings, charities, and office clearance companies (many of whom are also listing on the auction sites).

    For under £100 I got a i7 ThinkPad with 16GB RAM and the ‘Yoga’ fold capability, fully tricked out with touch screen, wacom pen, fingerprint reader and the rest - and even better it all works under Linux, even the fingerprint reader.

    There’s a genuine reason the stereotype of weebs with programming socks and a used thinkpad exists.

    New devices built to be cheap right from new can never compete for value against pre-owned business machines.

    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      18 days ago

      This is true all over the world, I think. At least that’s what my LATAM and AU/NZ friends tell me, and where I live, in the US, buying used laptops from a business liquidation is always better than the ewaste sold at the same price new.

      • tiramichu@sh.itjust.works
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        17 days ago

        I’m primarily using eBay, but I didn’t name names because the best option where other people are may vary.

        The seller I bought from wasn’t actually an auction (though auctions can be great too) - it was a “buy it now” item from a business seller who does electrical “waste” recycling for office businesses.

        Regardless of the platform, those kind of sellers are ideal because they have a lot of inventory and are more concerned with getting rid of it than they are with getting the highest price on any single item.