Thinkpads Forum

I am looking to purchase a laptop for my sister who basically would use it for email, MS Word and editing photos. I was wondering whether this T23 2647-9SU listed on ebay would be a good choice, and whether it looks like a good deal. According to IBM's website, the original specs for the 2647-9SU were: PIII-M 1.2GHz (512KB), 256MB RAM, 60.0GB HDD, 14.1 SXGA+(1400x1050) TFT LCD, 8x8x24/8x CD-RW/DVD-ROM, 802.11b Wireless(MPCI), Modem(MPCI), Ethernet(CDC), IBM Secure Chip, WinXP Pro.

This particular T23 has been upgraded to 512MB RAM and has Windows 2000 Pro installed. The Ebay Buy It Now price is $659.00.

The link to the ebay auction is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6768934148

Thanks very much for any responses.

Does she really need SXGA for e-mail, IM and such? You can buy a nice XGA T23 model for much less (say $400 delivered), or go up to an XGA T40 for not much more than you want to pay here. Also, I doubt you are getting the laptop pictured as that looks like an extra-clean XGA model (you can actually READ the screen in the picture so it's likely not SXGA). You may want to inquire on that. The seller has a disclaimer on wear & scratches and such too so I'm pretty sure that's not your laptop pictured. If you must have that high a resolution then ask the seller for more details (like a picture) of the model YOU will receive. Also ask for the model number & serial number as quite a few T23's are still under warranty. I know as I just sold 2 XGA models in the past month to young teens for IM, e-mails, music downloads, etc., and they both still had warranty left. One I found at a yard sale while looking through some old records for a friend. If all meets your satisfaction and you can't find anything you like better for less money then I guess you should bid. But plan on budgeting about $60 for a new battery as you are likely going to get one near death! Just my 2cents from experience.

Good Luck!
Yak

Seems high
Shipping does too
And why no bidding?
IMO there's a good chance it will end unsold.

ads,

Given your aforementioned requirements, you should also look into an "IBM Certified Used Equipment™" T23. That's where I bought mine. .

brainpicker wrote:You can buy a nice XGA T23 model for much less (say $400 delivered

I find the $400 figure quoted very hard to believe, seems about $150 too low (for something better than a beater).... Do you have a link to a site or completed auction?

FYI-

$400 is a little low for a T23, but $500 might do it (at least for a T22, anyway).

I will point to another alternative for refurbrished laptops at very good prices, http://www.overstock.com. They currently have 10 to 20 models with warranties between $500 and $1000. And, as of yesterday, $2 shipping and $60 off all orders over $500 with this link,
http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi ... 69309&fp=f

Here's a $40 coupon that is good until 5/31/05,
http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi ... 61468&fp=F

Good luck.

P.S. New R series IBM's start at $699.00.

I find the $400 figure quoted very hard to believe, seems about $150 too low (for something better than a beater).... Do you have a link to a site or completed auction?

There seems to be hundreds of T23's available now. Must be a big release into the market of off-lease models as they are becoming 3 years old. When I was pricing my 2 to sell I was seeing basic XGA models everywhere for as little as $400 that were XGA, without wireless, plain CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives, 30GB hard drives, and about 1GHz, but they were in decent enough condition. Remember that private owner machines are as a rule better cared for, so I'd ALWAYS want specifics of an off lease machine as those sellers will show you a picture of the pick of the lot and then claim "usual indications of wear and use". And for someone to send e-mail and IM, or take the red eye out of photos that's plenty machine.

I don't have time to go look for links like you want, but I still don't think I'm far off for the type of T23 I've described. If I'm wrong then you should be screaming for this fellow to by the one he pointed out. Right? I mean if I AM off on a model I've described by $150 (making a basic T23 at least $550 by your accounts), then the one he pointed out must be one hell of a bargain as it's top-o-da-line! I'd pay the extra $100 for the SXGA screen, faster processor, larger hard drive, wireless, combo drive, etc. any day. Wouldn't you? $550 minimum for basic (your numbers) vs. $650 for top line? Grab it. But if you now see MY logic (and numbers) as correct I'd still look for a private owner sale somewhere as the pride of ownership issue usually makes for less chance of abuse.

Yak

brainpicker wrote:[There seems to be hundreds of T23's available now. Must be a big release into the market of off-lease models as they are becoming 3 years old.

brainpicker, I take back what I said, there have in fact been a bunch of what look like decent T23s (some with internal wifi) going for a little over $400 recently on ebay. Strange, when I got my T22 6 weeks or so ago, T23s were as rare as hen's teeth, and were selling for a lot more. Ah, the mysteries of the market!

I recently bought my T23 (2647-HNU) off of ebay for $550 shipped. It has similar specs to the one you posted. I would hold out for a better deal and only bid when multiple pictures of the actual machine are posted.

I, like brainpicker, have to wonder if a T23 is not overkill for email, surfing, MS Word and some photo editing....

I know someone will feel that they have to call me on this but dare I suggest a T22, R31 or R32... if you check out seller laptopenterprise, they have what I consider decent ( pretty good but not great ) deals on an T22s/R31s in the $450 range, a $200 savings ... here is a link

[ http://search.ebay.com/t22-r31_W0QQsofo ... ageZsearch ]

you get:
- WiFi
- DVD & CD RW combo ( watch OUT, some of the machines on sale are DVD only or CD RW only at the same price with a machine with a CDRW/DVD combo, go figure.... )
- 1.2 GHz processor ( but crippled to celeron ) on the R31 and 900Mhz regular PIII on the T22
- 256mb
- 13' or 14' XGA
- Windows XP Preload ( this has all the standard IBM software as well as all drivers installed with the machine ready for first boot like a new machine .. This includes WinDVD among other things... this is a big deal if you are not a techie or do not have a Windows installation CD hanging around, many of us geeks do have a ton of installer CDs around the house / office but non geeks have to head for Best Buy and shell out $99 for Win XP home when they buy on Ebay )

I bought 5 machines from this guy last year for my business and they all turned out beautiful. I got at least 2 hours battery life on every one....

Not sure I'd agree with the "crippled to Celeron" part. What I've found in benchmarking my machine is that in the vast majority of the benchmarks my mobile celeron 2.0 gigahertz with 256k L2 cache benchmarks somewhere between a Pentium 4-m 1.8 gigahertz and a pentium 4-m 2.0 gigahertz. Both of those have 512kb L2 cache (and from what I've read use a slightly more efficient cache associativity algorithm).

See this link: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... =benchmark
where there are various benchmarks, one of which is my thinkpad and another is a P4-m w/512kb cache 1.7 gigahertz. The celeron in this case is clocked 15% faster. Here is the performance gain/loss of the celeron 2.0 in this benchmark vs the 1.7 gigahertz p4-m:

Addition/Multiplication (SSE) : +15.55%
Division (SSE) : +15.27%
Square Root (SSE) : +14.90%
Addition/Multiplication (FPU) : +15.02%
Division (FPU) : +15.11%
Square Root (FPU) : +8.9%
Whetstone : +16.46%

So I'm sure on some application synthetic benchmarks the P4-M at the same clock will be faster than the celeron 2.0 - but not by that much except in specialized cases where the extra 256kb of L2 cache is heavily used.

None of the use cases above seem to meet that criteria to me. I think the desktop celeron with 128kb of L2 cache is the one that people see referenced as a terrible performer and I have not found that to be the case with the mobile celeron with 256k L2 cache.

IBM did put 128k L2 cache celerons in some of their machines (believe some of the G40 series machines) - I don't believe that was the case with the R series (except possibly some of the e models - anyone know for sure)?

Steve

I second the notion of using an R-series older T-series or even an X-series for the purposes stated. The beauty of this era of computing is that the hardware has finally caught up to and even surpassed the needs of the software. Pretty much any Pentium III processor machine with 256 to 512 MB of RAM works well with XP (for general use).

I regulary use an X20 without any performance isssues. Additionally, my "guest" machine is an R30 with a 1GHz cpu and built-in WiFi. This machine has been used daily for years in a row without one problem. The R-series are more solid and durable than T-series machines with a minor weight penalty. (Of course, the T-series are a work of art.)

Don't limit yourself.