Thinkpads Forum

Thinkpad A20M
Pentium 3 M 850MHZ
built in networking and modem
512MB of RAM
15inch screen
DVDROM and Floppy built in.
80 GIG HD
brand new high capacity battery, lasts 4.5 hrs.
$450.00 or best offer.
Not stupid answers, no its not too much it has a new hard drive no trade for parts.

Looks like an impressive machine, but seems a bit pricey. $450 will get you a T41, and $600 a brand new R60e, so I can't see a P3 system going for that much, no matter how nice it is.

I may be interested if you are willing to part with it for around $300.

Do you have any pics?

EDIT: What is the screen resolution and part number (xxxx-xxx)?

makaveli559m wrote:no its not too much.

If someone knew nothing about how much an A20M was worth, but was told "no its not too much" right off the bat, they may wonder why you even had to say it.

Have you owned this since new?

edit: Referring to how long you've owned it, I did just find this:

makaveli559m wrote:I have had my Thinkpad A20M for at least 3 yrs. Im not willing to give it up

I did notice also when you tried to sell it in May, with no luck at $400.

makaveli559, put your location in your profile or this may get deleted.

Sorry a, I barely bought the hard drive, it would be stupid of me to sell it anything less. I also barely got the CPU too.

I said that because I seen other laptops that dont even have a drive that much for really cheap. On the plus side new cpu new battery new mini pci card too which I didnt say it was.

If thats how much you need to break even, i'd just keep it as a spare.

Good dependable machine to have as spare.

Ok I ll go down to 425.00

Yeah, it's hard to understand but an old computer is never worth the money you put into it; even if you're able to make your money back selling the individual parts. Once computers hit a certain age, the parts together seem to lose some of their individual value. An old computer that would normally be worth $100 or so but has been upgraded with a few hundred dollars worth of parts is still, for most buyers, a $100 computer; just with a few hundred worth of parts bundled.

Exactly. If you want to get as much money as possible, remove all recently added parts and sell them separately. For example, it has two sticks of 256MB low-density PC100 sticks, right? You can sell each for $40 or more on eBay. Put back the original parts (64MB module, dead battery, 500MHz Celeron processor, etc.) and sell the whole laptop for $150.

400.00 and no it wasnt a Celeron model if that is what you meant, the original cpu was a 700mhz Pentium 3 CPU. I could never do such thing and strip it down. What kind of people are you, gutting a machine You cant beat that, it has a new high capacity battery. I'd sell than 350.00 without the new battery.

I really hate to add to this, but you might want to consider selling it locally. For a Thinkpad of this age, regardless of the new parts added, you are not going to fetch that kind of price here, or on the internet in general.

You might luck out on eBay, but you'd have to tout every single added feature.

Last year, and the year before, I was able to sell 600E's locally with 400MHz CPUs, 288mb ram, 40gb HD, DVD/CDRW for $400-425. Since the T60/X60/R60 Thinkpads came out, prices have completely bottomed out. Now, I might be able to sell a 600E for about $200 locally....$100-150 here.

makaveli559m wrote:What kind of people are you, gutting a machine.

We are people trying to help you sell your computer for as much money as possible, and as quickly as possible. You have been trying to sell it since May, right? Computers depreciate by about 30-40% per year, so the longer you keep your laptop, the less it will be worth.

If you want to get the most out of it, monetary wise, you should part it out and sell those parts to people actively seeking to rebuild their machines for their own sake. $450 is a pretty steep asking price for an A20m as is $350; getting closer, but you will still have a hard time finding anybody to buy it outright. Either that or you find some really good way to promote every single feature on it.

It isn't that we are being cruel in saying "part it out," but that is probably how you would get the most money for what it is made of and not the complete Thinkpad altogether.

3 suggestions that might help;

1) pictures
2) describe "good condition"
3) did you also upgrade the CPU fan with an A20p (or better) fan?

A31's, T23's, T30's & T40's can routinely be had for $450 or less - some with warranty remaining.