Advice needed for buying second hand 17in PB

[danoleary]

I'm about to complete a transaction on a second hand, 8 month old, 17inch PB from eBay for £770 (US$1450). Is this too good to be true...?!! Have had an iMac flatpanel for ages and used mac's all my working life (ie. 9 years), but need a PB now for travelling.

Part of description was "Dents in the corner of the*casing caused by having been squeezed between two heavy cases in a*car boot*by an*idiot hotel concierge". Please email me if you want to see the seller's pictures of the damage to make a judgement...

Am collecting from seller in person, so just want some advice on what to look for with this kind of damage and any diagnostic checks I should run before handing over the cash? Have checked the serial number with Apple and it checks out.

Thanks.

 

[maclamb]

Far too little info for me to gauge price - check ebay and craigs list to get idea of price for that machine config (tho price sounds low for a newish pb 17)
as for dents- I would check that everything opens and closes ok and cd works and plays or and listen for noise.
Not many moving parts - hinge, cdrom, hd- if those work ok, you s/be ok
Plus I would want an original reciept so i could get applecare when the 4 months ends.

 

[Leareth]

Check for dead pixels and color smears on screen, open all the way back and move back forth to see if screen black out
See how well is closes and stays closed
Check if it reads disks and ejects them...
turn airport on ( if included) see if it works
press every keyboard key in a text app to check the keyboard works
and see how much juice the battery has left