@kaka135 I did not buy my old laptop from a person but a very reputed site Gumtree which people use to sell almost everything right from plants to food and laptops to household items. People also use this site for free giveaways and also big companies use it for selling their products. I bought my used laptop from one such company who gave me a guarantee for three months.@Jamille The item I bought was company refurbished and everything was mentioned in site itself and the bill I received with laptop.
I went with the Chromebook approach, and it ended up working out great. I just needed something that I could carry around more and that would still be able to do most everything, and I would basically say that it is a second laptop.
@Ray1 It's good that there is a reputed site for these purposes. I always feel hopeful that there are still people/sites/companies that are trusted and reputable. Is Gumtree an International site? Where did you purchase your old laptop from? I read that it's an UK site and I wonder if they deliver to other countries as well. It's good that you even get the warranty from the company.
@kaka135 As much as I know Gumtree is listed in different countries but I bought my laptop in Sydney Australia, (the laptop came from Melbourne through courier though). If I remember right another member on this site mentioned about Gumtree, UK. I thought you were here in Australia for your Uni education so you might have heard about this site. People do more than shopping on Gumtree here.Log In
Never so far. I wish your laptop will stay okay for long. One of my friend had bad experience with this. He had purchased second hand laptop and for first 6 months it worked without any problem. Then problem started coming in. He faced lots of problem with his laptop and he spend lots of money behind repairing. And in the end he has to go for new one. So if our luck is good enough then yes we can get good laptop with good deal. But if we get some bad piece then it may create many problem.
I have bought a second hand laptop and I can assure you that they come in handy. This is so because you do not need to incur other costs of installing software as we do with new laptops. What you need to ensure before buying a second hand laptop or any other electronic device is that it is working efficiently. You should buy it from an authorized dealer and get a receipt of purchase.
@naruto100 I bought it long before in 2013 in Australia and sold it when I visited India in 2014 for almost same price that i had paid for it. The laptop I bought was in perfect condition but I changed its OS from Vista to Linux manually and installed a security software. The laptop had no battery backup as it was almost dead but it was not a bad deal for AU$95 including courier charges. It was a refurbished one with a guarantee by the dealing company. I did not change battery as the power supply here is never out.
I would never get myself to buy a second hand item of electronics, no matter how careful or whom i'm buying it from, the risk is too high
Even I would never buy anything secondhand in electronics but the one I bought was refurbished and had sellers guarantee like e-Bay offers. Gumtree here in Australia is one of the most trusted and used by millions every month which has almost everything available for a very reasonable rates. Otherwise also people throw items on the road because cost of disposal is more than what they get otherwise so they offer them on Gumtree on a very low price or even free of cost... Here is an example (I took this image in front of my home which shows king sized mattress, sofa set and other useful items waiting someone for picking.
@Ray1 Ha ha.. Here one need surely good battery backup as no guarantee of power. Though things have been improved lately. Well, personally I don't have any bad experience so far. I guess if price difference is too much then only I will think about purchasing even refurbished product. Good to hear that you got good product with that, you are lucky for sure. Refurbished items may be good but I always have mix feeling about that too, so never tried it.
Electronics is one thing that I will not buy second hand. Items like furniture or household items I can buy on second hand but not electronics. There are so many things that can go wrong. Therefore I have never bought a laptop on second hand. I would rather buy my laptop brand new from a reputable store where I will be issued with a purchase slip. If anything goes wrong, I can always bring the laptop back for returns/exchange/repairs. Purchase slips from stores offers a guarantee/warranty of up to 24 months.
Not a laptop, but I bought a few smaller devices and I was never entirely satisfied. Usually all these portable devices have a common failure, and that is much weaker battery life than a new device. I could upgrade it with a new battery, but I bought it to avoid high expenses not to add to it.
I haven't, but a friend of mine did. He bought it voetstoots -- as is -- without taking it for a test drive, so to speak. Also, he barely even knew the guy who sold it to him. I told him was an idiot for doing so, and that I wouldn't have done the same thing. Well, a couple of days later, I was proved right. A couple of hours later, he discovered that the laptop had no battery life whatsoever, meaning he had to keep his laptop plugged in whenever he used it. This, in my view, defies the purpose of having a laptop.
@Jamille I respect your opinion and agree with you but I wanted to make an experience/experiment with Google's adsense in 2013 as my adsense account was disabled a few months before so I did not want to spend lot of money on a new laptop. I am glad I succeeded making a new account with a different IP in a different country without much problem. That laptop served my purpose perfectly.
I agree, when buying a second hand electronic item, not only are you at risk of facing problems and issues with the device, you might not even use it for long
I agree with you. I have bought one old laptop in 2013 and sold it in 2014 for almost at no profit no loss basis. The laptop was an okd model of Lenovo which was clearly mentioned in the advertisement on gumtree and guaranteed against any defect for a certain period. However what was not mentioned in the advert that the battery was totally dead. However, it was a good one which served my purpose and then I sold it off.
I don't need to carry one while I'm away from home, so I don't have one and I have never bought a 2nd hand one yet. I always prefer a desktop over a laptop since I hate charging things and being interrupted with what I'm doing when I'm gonna use a laptop.
I have bought a second-hand laptop a few years ago from a guy on the Internet. He said is working fine and is almost new. After two weeks the laptop broke, I called the guy but he didn't answer my phone anymore. He cheated me, and since then I never bought any electronic device from second hand, I prefer to pay more and buy from the local store.
I have never purchased second hand laptop. In fact I try to avoid anything second hand. As that can be really bad if you ask me. Most of the second hand electronics can be full of issues. And in such case it'd be reasonable. But the thing is that people buy the second hand stuff because it can be good for their usage. And that is one more reason I think electronics should be avoided. I don't see a point for that. It's going to crash eventually.
