Refurbished thinkpad buying advice

[brendel95]

I am trying to buy laptop for my sister who works at finance company and travel alot. So I am considering refurbished (certified) thinkpad t series (I believe most of them are lease return) from IBM website.

I heard lots of good stroy about the refurbished mac but I have never heard about the refurbished or lease returned thinkpad.

Has anybody in the forum exprience with lease return or refurbished thinkpad?

Thanks in advance

 

[budugu]

I am trying to buy laptop for my sister who works at finance company and travel alot. So I am considering refurbished (certified) thinkpad t series (I believe most of them are lease return) from IBM website.

I heard lots of good stroy about the refurbished mac but I have never heard about the refurbished or lease returned thinkpad.

Has anybody in the forum exprience with lease return or refurbished thinkpad?

Thanks in advance

They more banged up as they are corporate machines. THey get used a lot. Thre is a diff between off-lease vs refurb. off-lease is generally companies use them from 1-2-3 years and buy new equipment and are worn out. Where as manufactured defect items are quickly returned at restored. Do you want to buy a refurb if you can get a new IBM R50e for <600, and T43 for <1300 (512/3yearWarranty/15"SXGA/Finger print stuff?"
http://www.xpbargains.com

 

[brendel95]

Thank you for the link

 

[Bear]

...
Has anybody in the forum exprience with lease return or refurbished thinkpad?

Thanks in advance

I would like to point out that this forum is called "Mac Hardware > Buying Tips, Advice and Discussion" and the last I checked, a ThinkPad was not Mac related hardware.

 

[Abstract]

Meh, does it really matter? People talk about non-Mac items all the time here and in other forums too.

 

[Marky_Mark]

Bear in mind, lappies are worked really hard in a corporate environment for the three or four years they're used. If they're anything like the ones we give back in my company, they're pretty much life-expired! They're banged around, left in cars overnight so they get really cold, left by a window in direct sunlight so they get really hot, dropped, leant on, never cleaned, eaten over - in fact almost anything you can think of that you wouldn't dream of doing to your own equipment. Consider very carefully before committing your bucks...

 

[hasselhoff]

Bear in mind, lappies are worked really hard in a corporate environment for the three or four years they're used. If they're anything like the ones we give back in my company, they're pretty much life-expired! They're banged around, left in cars overnight so they get really cold, left by a window in direct sunlight so they get really hot, dropped, leant on, never cleaned, eaten over - in fact almost anything you can think of that you wouldn't dream of doing to your own equipment. Consider very carefully before committing your bucks...

Thinkpads are a very nice machine, though. If I had to buy an XP laptop, IBM/Lenovo would be my choice.

 

[dmetzcher]

Bear in mind, lappies are worked really hard in a corporate environment for the three or four years they're used. If they're anything like the ones we give back in my company, they're pretty much life-expired! They're banged around, left in cars overnight so they get really cold, left by a window in direct sunlight so they get really hot, dropped, leant on, never cleaned, eaten over - in fact almost anything you can think of that you wouldn't dream of doing to your own equipment. Consider very carefully before committing your bucks...

I second this point. I treat my company laptop...er...not so well. I'm hoping they will replace the piece of crap soon. Left in the car...yep...day and night...LOL...how about over a weekend? Banged around...slid in and out of a docking station every day...that'll bang 'em around a bit.

 

[Village]

Bear in mind, lappies are worked really hard in a corporate environment for the three or four years they're used. If they're anything like the ones we give back in my company, they're pretty much life-expired! They're banged around, left in cars overnight so they get really cold, left by a window in direct sunlight so they get really hot, dropped, leant on, never cleaned, eaten over - in fact almost anything you can think of that you wouldn't dream of doing to your own equipment. Consider very carefully before committing your bucks...

I can attest, as a Toshiba and HP-certified notebook tech, that these End Of Lease machines come back from the user pretty beaten up. However, we had to repair the slightest crack or missing screw on our EOL machines before sending them back to the leasing company (IBM Leasing, as a matter of fact).

Hardware assurances aside, do you really want to give your sister a 2-3 year old piece of hardware? The battery has most certainly depleted its useful life and the hard drive has only a couple years to go before it also starts to fail.

I'd go for a refurb IBM, or grab one of the new widescreen Thinkpads that are priced very competitively right now. I personally bought a loaded T43 last month and love it!

 

[brendel95]

First of all, thanks for the many suggestion for non mac related question.

She is windowz person (I conldn't convert her). She is not a computer geek and she travels time to time and needs basic and reliable laptop. So my natural choice was a used or refurbished thinkpad.

So I looked at the ebay and IBM lenovo website and find out that many of used and refurbished item are lease reurn item. And I knew that leased computers are most of time abused a lot. That is why I ask for the opinion from people from here.

Now I am leaning toward the new one though

Anyway thanks for many comments