Used / refurbed laptops - where to buy thats "good"?
Discussion
Hi All,
Got to get a laptop upgrade for work as my win10 laptop is out of date and creaking (its an old win7 machine)
i got the wife one from dell refurbished but had nothing but problems with it, the hdd was loose and connections slightly bent, so had to get a new hdd for it
i'm not sure i would risk used via ebay/facebook unless anyone has a "trusted" seller?
i dont need anything flashy - video calls, web front end devs, thats it!
Got to get a laptop upgrade for work as my win10 laptop is out of date and creaking (its an old win7 machine)
i got the wife one from dell refurbished but had nothing but problems with it, the hdd was loose and connections slightly bent, so had to get a new hdd for it
i'm not sure i would risk used via ebay/facebook unless anyone has a "trusted" seller?
i dont need anything flashy - video calls, web front end devs, thats it!
Have a look through the history on HotUkDeals for the usual resellers of refurbed laptops, even if a deal has expired there's usually lots of helpful feedback on the seller and particular model.
I only bother with refurbed Lenovo Thinkpads having used them at work and know how good they are and how cheap they come up on ebay. Ideal for general use if not bothered about gaming or anything more specialist. They often come with a Windows licence but I put Linux Mint on them for my own use now Windows is going down the road of 'AI' up the wazoo and general ens
ttification that started a long time ago. My brother used to buy cheap consumer laptops from the likes of PC World that he wore out (often the hinge deteriorated causing issues with the wiring to the screen) so I gave him one of my old Thinkpads and so far it's lasted ok. So business grade beats consumer for longevity.
I only bother with refurbed Lenovo Thinkpads having used them at work and know how good they are and how cheap they come up on ebay. Ideal for general use if not bothered about gaming or anything more specialist. They often come with a Windows licence but I put Linux Mint on them for my own use now Windows is going down the road of 'AI' up the wazoo and general ens

Back in August 2024 I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 for £255 from newandusedlaptops4u on eBay.
I bought the AMD model rather than Intel*, it came with 16GB of onboard soldered RAM, and a 256 GB SSD.
The T14 has a single RAM slot so I did then spend £30 to upgrade to 32 GB, which has the added benefit of enabling dual-channel memory (which increased its 3D performance by 66%) Be careful, some of the T14 models (e.g. the T14s) have no RAM slot.
As for the eBay supplier, this was the second thinkPad I'd ordered from them. The first was lost in shipping by ParcelForce, but newandusedlaptops4u dispatched a replacement laptop after a few days. This second ThinkPad went much more smoothly, and as it was only two and a half years old when I bought it it still had six months of the Lenovo warranty remaining.
The nice thing about the ThinkPads is that the Windows licence key details are stored in the BIOS, so using the Rufus tool I was able to create Windows install media, and install an up to date and clean version of Windows 11 Pro that is fully licensed.
*being the AMD model it has the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U, rather than the Core i7-10810U in the high-end Intel model. Same single-core performance, much better multi-core performance, and runs cooler. Plus, as the AMD Ryzen includes a Radeon RX Vega 7 iGPU I get surprisingly decent gaming performance from older games.
I bought the AMD model rather than Intel*, it came with 16GB of onboard soldered RAM, and a 256 GB SSD.
The T14 has a single RAM slot so I did then spend £30 to upgrade to 32 GB, which has the added benefit of enabling dual-channel memory (which increased its 3D performance by 66%) Be careful, some of the T14 models (e.g. the T14s) have no RAM slot.
As for the eBay supplier, this was the second thinkPad I'd ordered from them. The first was lost in shipping by ParcelForce, but newandusedlaptops4u dispatched a replacement laptop after a few days. This second ThinkPad went much more smoothly, and as it was only two and a half years old when I bought it it still had six months of the Lenovo warranty remaining.
The nice thing about the ThinkPads is that the Windows licence key details are stored in the BIOS, so using the Rufus tool I was able to create Windows install media, and install an up to date and clean version of Windows 11 Pro that is fully licensed.
*being the AMD model it has the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U, rather than the Core i7-10810U in the high-end Intel model. Same single-core performance, much better multi-core performance, and runs cooler. Plus, as the AMD Ryzen includes a Radeon RX Vega 7 iGPU I get surprisingly decent gaming performance from older games.
I bought a pair of refurbished Lenovo Thinkpads for around £250 each from newandusedlaptops4u on eBay.
They look really good. Excellent condition and both worked fine. After a few weeks the touchpad on one of them started to play up, and wouldn't work. I messaged them, not really expecting much, but they asked a few questions (have you restarted it, does it happen after it has been on a while etc) and then said they would swap it for an identical one. They sent the new one to her uni address and collected the broken one at the same time. Very good service.
They look really good. Excellent condition and both worked fine. After a few weeks the touchpad on one of them started to play up, and wouldn't work. I messaged them, not really expecting much, but they asked a few questions (have you restarted it, does it happen after it has been on a while etc) and then said they would swap it for an identical one. They sent the new one to her uni address and collected the broken one at the same time. Very good service.
I quite like Stone Refurb
Easy to use website and reasonable prices
Have bought 2/3 laptops from them for work and all been good value
www.stonerefurb.co.uk
Easy to use website and reasonable prices
Have bought 2/3 laptops from them for work and all been good value
www.stonerefurb.co.uk
In contrast to the OP, I've had several from Dell Outlet over the years and not had an issue with any of them. I had one turn up today that I'm just setting up for an elderly neighbour as his current laptop won't take W11 - the Dell looks absolutely brand new, not a mark on it. One of the benefits with buying Outlet is it comes with a full warranty and being newer will get updates etc for longer. This one's not a monster spec but it's responsive and zipping through setup and updates just fine.
OutInTheShed said:
About a year ago, I was looking at refurb laptops and ended up buying new for not much more.
This, it's all very well buying a refurbed laptop for £250 but often the processor is five or more generations old. A £300 Dell is more than likely faster, and not covered in someone's boogers, skin and stale jizz.wyson said:
I ve used the Dell Outlet and itsales.co.uk. Always been indistinguishable from new, apart from the box.
Should itsales.co.uk be itcsales.co.uk? itsales.co.uk is listed as for sale for me.I ask as I've seen a Dell monitor on their website at a decent price as it's an old model but claimed to be brand new. However, I've never used them before so was checking how legit they are.
If the laptop is going to be desk bound most of the time, the cheap new budget offerings by the same brands offering more expensive versions (Dell, HP, Lenovo, ...) are worth considering, but if it's going to be used for the portability being chucked into bags and banged around on public transport the business grade ones are built to be more robust so will last longer, which is where refurbed ones become a bargain. e.g. they use metals and stronger composites on the more expensive models, rather than plastic of the budget ones which are prone to cracking.
Read the reviews of any particular model, search reddit, to see how people have got on with them. There's often comparisons where people are unsure whether to spend more, to see if worth doing so.
Read the reviews of any particular model, search reddit, to see how people have got on with them. There's often comparisons where people are unsure whether to spend more, to see if worth doing so.
wyson said:
I ve used the Dell Outlet and itsales.co.uk. Always been indistinguishable from new, apart from the box.
Same, I have purcahsed two laptops from there and they both arrived in as new condition, even the charger was still sealed. The only difference I could see if that they arrived in a generic box as opposed to the original.ThingsBehindTheSun said:
it's all very well buying a refurbed laptop for £250 but often the processor is five or more generations old. A £300 Dell is more than likely faster....
The cheapest Windows Dell laptop I can find on their UK website is the DC15250 for £350, which has an Intel Core 3 100U, 8 GB, and 512 GB SSD. This seems to be a value laptop (completely understandable at this price point) as any change to the above specification results in a very different laptop and more expensive configuration (e.g. going to 16 GB also requires changing to an i7-1355U and 1 TB SSD, for a total of £629).
The AMD CPU in the 4 year old ThinkPad T14 I mentioned above has about the same performance as the new Dell's Core 3 CPU (Intel 30% faster at single-core, AMD 8% faster at multi-core), but I see 16 GB as the entry point for laptop RAM nowadays (which does almost double the price of the cheap Dell, but I think that's an oddity of that particular Dell model). I suspect the £255 4 year old ThinkPad will be a better user experience than the brand new £350 Dell.
The big win, for me, is that the ThinkPad was a £1500 laptop designed for corporate use, has a glass fiber reinforced plastic case, and a plastic/magnesium alloy chassis. Reviews suggest the Dell is considerably less rigid in use.
But you're quite right, the ease of purchasing new and the benefit of a warranty are major pluses for the cheap Dell, and honestly if going to 16 GB of RAM didn't double the price I'd be interested as well (but as this is Dell I suspect you could find a cheaper 16 GB laptop if you didn't sort by price, then change the spec of the cheapest result, which is what I did).
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