Ever bought a computer on Ebay? Seeking advise.

[Scout1071]

I'm looking for a new computer and wondering whether I should check out Ebay for bargains?

Any other good online sources? Please advise!

[Lindacooks]

1. Do NOT use the 'Buy it Now' option.

I was just advised, in a purchase I'm having a problem with, that 'Buy it Now' from a seller's eBay store isn't considered a purchase 'within eBay'.

"Since this item was purchased outside of eBay, it is not eligible for eBay services, such as transactional feedback, contact information requests, and the Standard Purchase Protection Program. Those services are only available for items listed and purchased on eBay in compliance with our guidelines and policies. Items purchased outside of eBay include those bought directly from a seller, item listings that ended with no high bidder, and item listings that did not meet the reserve price on eBay."

Other than that, I've had very good luck with eBay - just avoid those online eBay stores.

[Scout1071]

5. Very interesting. I had no idea these weren't within Ebay.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Dukkha]

29. you're half right

However if an individual seller or store has a regular auction with the option to end it with the Buy It Now option, then it's considered an eBay purchase.

Either way you are STILL protected through your credit card and PayPal for non receipt, not as described, or defective purchases.

I've never bought a computer on eBay, but I've sold two Laptops and Mac parts myself. I also work for Credit Card disputes and handle eBay cases all the time.

[Scout1071]

30. Good to know as well.

[fujiyama]

2. A few good sites

www.newegg.com has great deals on various components (I know they have barebones kits but not sure about entire PCs) - worth checking out.

www.resellerratings.com has some decent deals listed and also have reviews of the different sites.

Also try www.pricewatch.com

Sometimes they have good deals listed but I'd check with resellerratings to check out a few reviews and the overall score of the company before buying.

Good luck.

[Scout1071]

6. Appreciate the tip. Reseller is helpful

[Deja Q]

18. mwave.com also has good motherboard bundle deals...

$350 for a Athlon 64 3000+ w/mobo and 1GB of DDR400 RAM. :9

[Scout1071]

22. Warning...i have no idea what Athlon, AMD, mobo or DDR400 mean

[Dastard Stepchild]

21. I'll vouch for newegg.com

They have great service... never had a problem with them once. And great prices.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Yeah. Me.

Got some sweet Shuttles for sale. Some AMD AthlonXPs(2 2500s) with Nforce2 chipsets, 2 3.06 ghz Pentium 4s(One has dual SATA Drives and an Nvidia FX5200) and several others.

Some of them are dual-boot, WindowsXP and Mandrakelinux 10.1 Powerpack(Soon to be 10.2).

Lemme know. I can PM prices to you.

[Scout1071]

4. yeah, but do you have anything in English?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. That was English.

Really. Trust me.

http://us.shuttle.com

[Scout1071]

9. Sorry, I had never heard of the brand before

I'm looking at desktops, but really focused on a laptop.

[necso]

8. Check out

www.salescircular.com for sales.

Although these deals are often in-store only. Still it can be worth something of a drive.

Substantial rebates are involved and there is some risk in this. (I have recommended deals from here to a goodly number of people and they have had good luck with rebates.) You have to take or leave what is offered and the deals tend to go fast when the sale starts -- but sometimes the stores get more later in the sale period.

[Scout1071]

10. Follow-up question for any techies...

I'm looking for a laptop. I basically just surf the net. I'd like to do the standard digital pics, music, etc. I've never had most of those features, so i don't need anything too high tech. Although i would like a DVD/CD-Write. Also, my company told me that I have the option of working from home 3 days a week, so i'll need to be able to create and present powerpoint presentations.

My question is, how much memory/power, etc. do you really think I need? I pretty much just want the basics and I'm on a budget. Thoughts?

[fujiyama]

11. What was your price range?

I was just searching for laptops for myself...and I'm an AMDer through and through (won't even look at Intel now), and I found several good laptops for under a thousand bucks (using the resellerratings like I gave ya). But if you have even lesser requirements, you might be able to find something in the 600-800 dollar range.

Depending on your price, I would go with atleast a 2GHz processor, 256-512MB RAM, 60-80GB HD. Most decent laptops have a DVD/RW drive as standard as well as a wireless card for internet use in cafes and places.

Granted, these may be refurbished, but they still have the manufacturers warranty. I found one nice model by Acer on Newegg for around 800 dollars or so (may have been abit more)...I forgot the model number but I'll find it and post it. Here it is:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?DEPA=0&description=34-115-171&ATT=Notebooks&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me

It looks like a good buy for $845 and I've been pleased with Newegg in the past.

[Scout1071]

12. Excellent. Those are the basic specs i'm looking for and if i could

find something in the 600-800 price range so that i could have a few bucks leftover for wifi equip and other goodies, it would be perfect.

Any brand/model suggestions in that range? i keep hearing Dell and HP, but they have so many models!

[KitchenWitch]

13. If choosing blue is important to you I would avoid Dell

notorious rethug contributor!

[Scout1071]

14. Feck.

Bummer.

[fujiyama]

15. HP is pretty good

but I've heard mixed things about Dell. I'd avoid them for a few reasons - they don't have AMDs and the "good deals" are usually on Celerons, which are basically junk (AVOID A CELERON AT ALL COSTS!).

Compaq also has some decent deals as well.

[Sgent]

16. Check out the dell

refurbished machines. Much cheaper, and comes with a full manufactorer warrentty (from dell).

Dell also has some of the better laptops available.

IMHO, Laptop quality is the following in order:

1) IBM Business Machines
2) Apple
2) HP/Compaq Business Machines
3) Dell Business Machines
4) Dell home Machines
5) Toshiba

Any of the above you wont' go wrong with.

[Scout1071]

20. Thanks. Dell and HP have definitely been recommended the most

But I've had a few people mention Toshiba to me as well.

I'm on the hunt and hoping to leap into the 21st century with a new computer this week.

Wish me luck!

[Nay]

17. A warning -- my brother bought a laptop from an individual seller

who turned out to be a ripoff artist. It turns out that several people sent this woman money for the laptop and she disappeared -- so I would be very careful, if I were you. Always use the Paypal option, which allows you to get the item before your money is released to the seller.

[Midlodemocrat]

19. I got an IBM laptop from Ebay

from a buyer who purchases off lease products, reconditions them and sells them. It works great. Came with Windows XP Pro.

[Scout1071]

23. OK, this is Dell, but what do you think of this and what else would i need

to get myself off and running? i.e. wireless router, software, etc? I just want to make sure that I have a good understanding of what I'll need to budget for beyond the actual computer. Thanks again for all of your help. Without a good grasp of all of the technical terms and applications, this task has been a little daunting for me. Bear with me, I am learning - your input has been very helpful.

Thanks again!

I'm looking at the Inspirion 6000 at the link below:
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/promo.aspx/deal_of_week_promo?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~lt=popup

And i'm not sold on Dell (because of the red mention above), but really need to understand what additional cost I should be aware of for total system.

[Misunderestimator]

24. One word of advice... go through the Dell Small Business link instead...

Much better discounts there, and you don't need to have a small business to purchase from there. I just bought a Latitude laptop that I love with an instant $400 rebate. I already have an older and smaller Latitude that I've never had problems with. I think you might want to look at the Latitudes instead of the Inspirons. They are more geared to the kind of use you are describing, and generally a better bargain for the price.

[gulfcoastliberal]

25. Purchased an HP Pavilion ZV5000 laptop from an Ebay seller...

Not the guy who lists dozens of HPs, but a private seller. I was a little nervous; I paid with a Postal money order. But it came in exactly the condition described, albeit with what appears to be a bootlegged version of XP Pro, but I don't need SP2 since I run ZA and AVG Pro. I say go for it, but look for private sellers if you want the best deals. And download auction sentry while you're at it.

[Scout1071]

26. What are ZA, AVG Pro, SP2 and Auction sentry?

:shrug:

[gulfcoastliberal]

27. ZA is Zonealarm, a firewall. SP2 = service pack 2 AVG = antivirus

Auction sentry is a program that synchs your computer with Ebay, and lets you make your bid secaonds before an auction ends, aloowing you to avoid bidding wars and snatch an item at the last possible moment. You can usually find it on services such as limewire.

[Scout1071]

28. Very interesting.....sounds like a cool program.

[Speck Tater]

31. I bought 2 pocket PC's on eBay and was happy with them. (nt)

[Scout1071]

32. This seems like a good deal....should i bid? help!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31542&item=6754683873&rd=1

[Wonk]

33. 5 minutes until auction closes.

For what it is (Inspiron 6000, 1.3 ghz Celeron M, 30 GB hd, 256 MB ram, CDRW/DVD), that looks like a good price ($660) to me.

edit: Seller has a positive feedback rating of 99.2%, and that's a good thing to look for too.

[Wonk]

34. Someone put in a last minute bid, bought it for $691.

Was that you?

[Scout1071]

35. $%^&#@! I couldn't get my paypal account updated in time.

i haven't used it in a while and having a hard time updating payment/address info. I've been on hold with freakin' paypal this whole time.

That seemed like a good deal to me.

[Wonk]

36. It's not the only one out there, don't worry.

I just did a little search for you and found this too, which is comparable. Starting at $649 (after rebate).

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks/hp_pavilion&series_name=ze2000_series&catLevel=2&tab_switch=true&tab=specs

edit: I'd go for the bump up to the 1.5 ghz Celeron M processor (+$25) and 512 MB ram (+$75) though, if it were me, instead of getting a bare bones base model.

[Scout1071]

37. Thanks Wonk! I'll check out the link and keep an eye on Ebay tonight

Sorry for the delayed response. I've been out with friends for a bit.

Hope you having a great weekend.

[Scout1071]

38. i'm going after a HP pavillion now

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6754667787&fromMakeTrack=true

[barackmyworld]

39. dealnews.com is a good site

for computer-related stuff, but I'm not sure if it's as useful for whole computers.

[Scout1071]

41. i'll check it out, but really looking for a complete system

[Scout1071]

40. AGAIN, MY APOLOGIES FOR MISSPELLING "ADVICE" AT THE TOP

i was extremely tired on my original post. had a good laugh about it this morning.

[Sgent]

42. If you haven't bought one yet

Check out Dell Outlet. This is where dell sells their remanufacturered machines with full warrenty from Dell.