Can someone tell me if I overpaid for my laptop?

Message

quashu · #1 Post by **quashu** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:01 pm

I bought a used laptop for $540.
(well it was $385 but I spent $140 on 1GB ram because
the laptop came with only 256mb)
IBM thinkpad R51 1.4 celery M, 40g HD, 1.25GB RAM.

People in other forum(not a computer forum) told me
I paid too much. So I want to hear from the experts.
Is this is good deal or did I pay too much?

pianowizard · #2 Post by **pianowizard** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:10 pm

$385 for the laptop seems about right, though you could have easily saved $60 on the 1GB PC2700 stick. If you can provide us with the product number (look for a sticker on the bottom of the laptop, it should look something like 2887-EXU), then we can assess the value of your R51 more accurately.

quashu · #3 Post by **quashu** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:29 am

i looked and it says 2887-CU2.
thanks for your reply.

quashu · #4 Post by **quashu** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:31 am

OMG you have so many laptops!
though you don't have any mac.

do you know how do I
do side-to-side scrolling using my
touchpad?
It does the up&down scrolling okay but
not responding to side-to-side scrolling.

pianowizard · #5 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:19 am

I looked it up on lenovo.com and it showed that it's actually 1.4GHz Pentium M. These are the full specs:

Based on 2887-53U: P M 1.4GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB 4200rpm HDD, 14.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, Intel Extreme, 24x24x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, 802.11a/b/g wireless(MPCI), Modem(CDC), 1Gb Ethernet(LOM), UltraNav, Secure Chip, IEEE 1394, 6 cell Li-Ion battery, WinXP Home

If it really is Pentium M, then I would say $385 is a fairly good price, though if it's Celeron, then it's just average.

Yeah, I have quite a few laptops, but many people here have even more!

quashu · #6 Post by **quashu** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:38 am

it's a celeron,
but that's still good to know,
because many people said I got ripped off bad, in some other forum, and that made me feel like I'm a fool.

#7 Post by **carbon_unit** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:22 am

You never mentioned whether there is any warranty left. If so that raises the value. Check here: Link

pianowizard · #8 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:39 am

quashu wrote:it's a celeron,
but that's still good to know,
because many people said I got ripped off bad, in some other forum, and that made me feel like I'm a fool.

What forum was that? They probably didn't understand two things: 1) Celeron M is much better than Celeron, and 2) Thinkpads are worth more than laptops of other brands with similar specs.

quashu · #9 Post by **quashu** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:36 am

that was this forum

http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuari ... hp?t=93075

this is the first time I ever buy IBM laptop,
really good quality I think,
I wonder if levono is making laptop with high standard, if so, my
next laptop(next yr) will be a thinkpad too.

bigtiger · #10 Post by **bigtiger** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:24 pm

Well, once you paid it, just use it. You research the price before your purchase, NOT after your purchase.

That said, Even IBM R series laptops are far better than a normal Toshiba. I had some really BAD experience with toshiba low-end laptops. toshiba itself CAN make good laptops. I saw some Japanese using really fancy Toshiba laptops--those high end ones. But their consumer level laptops are really poorly made.

(Hope my rant does not violate rules this forum. I rarely criticize other brands, but since somebody brought that up, I here offer my opinion).

#11 Post by **carbon_unit** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:34 pm

I wouldn't take too much stock in what those guys say. They wouldn't know quality if it hit them in the face. There is a lot more to performance than just CPU numbers.
If they can show me where to buy a good R51 for $250.00 I'll buy a stack of them.
Relax and enjoy your R51. It's a decent computer.

quashu · #12 Post by **quashu** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:06 pm

Did you forget to type some words?
Because it's hard to tell whether you are praising toshiba or the
converse.

bigtiger wrote: That said, Even R series laptops are far better than a normal Toshiba. I had some really experience with toshiba laptops. toshiba itself CAN make good laptops. I saw some Japanese using really fancy Toshiba laptops--those high end ones. But their consumer level laptops are really well made.

(Hope my rant does not violate rules this forum. I rarely criticize other brands, but since somebody brought that up, I here offer my opinion).

quashu · #13 Post by **quashu** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:08 pm

yes i'm odd, I also study the exams after I take exams.

bigtiger wrote:Well, once you paid it, just use it. You research the price before your purchase, NOT after your purchase.

dsigma6 · #14 Post by **dsigma6** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:18 am

the actuary forum really urked me. not only did the one loser vomit on thinkpads, i found one too many people hating on pink floyd. GRRRR..

pianowizard · #15 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:12 pm

bigtiger wrote:Well, once you paid it, just use it. You research the price before your purchase, NOT after your purchase.

Researching prices before purchasing is obviously most important, but I think researching afterward can also be helpful. If you realize that you have paid too much and regret the purchase, then perhaps it's possible to resell it right away and buy another, better-priced unit. I did that at least once, e.g. when I bought a T21 for $160 two months ago. Normally, $160 for a T21 is not bad, but the display turned out to be kind of fuzzy and had lots of pressure marks, so I sold it locally within two weeks for $170.

Website · #16 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:19 pm

The price for the laptop itself was pretty good...I would have bought it. The ram is where you lost out.

As for the guys in the forum, I agree with some of the above posters here....they wouldn't know quality if it bit them in the nose. Yes, you can buy a faster laptop for less, but how long will it last???

#17 Post by **carbon_unit** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 6:47 pm

And I have worked on some brand new 2ghz+ compaq/dell/emachines laptops that were considerably slower than my T42 (see sig).
Numbers don't tell the whole story.

#18 Post by **Kyocera** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:18 pm

Wow, what an interesting and informative forum that is (hurl)

. Bigtiger has a good point.

You could put it up on ebay or craigslist and try to get your money back or just enjoy it, don't worry about it. If everything works on it you did not get ripped off.

#19 Post by **underclocker** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:14 pm

The R51's are very good; durable and reliable.

Your machine price is good, the RAM price is bad.

But do the right thing, swap the CPU for a Pentium M from eBay. For about $40, you can pick up a Pentium M 1.5GHz. It will give you a slight speed boost and battery life boost. Plus you can start tweaking it yourself like the rest of us.

I mean you spent $140 on RAM, $40 on a CPU is a deal.

I made the CPU swap on my R51, no problem.

#20 Post by **underclocker** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:15 pm

And another thing, those low end Dell, Toshiba, Compaq machines do have great spec.'s, but they are junk. They look cool, but feel like crap, they creak and they break - often.

I'm speaking from experience, earlier this year I picked up a Compaq V2000. I was very excited about the built-in SD reader. The very first time I inserted an SD card, the machine shut off. I needed a new motherboard. Nice!

Well HP service was actually very quick. And I quickly sold that POS.

pianowizard · #21 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 8:22 pm

I finally took a look at that forum. One guy named mlschop wrote "Awful...I'm amazed at the lack of laptop knowledge people have nowadays". Yeah, that's a very accurate description of pretty much everyone on that forum!

BTW, you took out a 256MB stick from the R51 to replace it with a 1GB stick, right? I think it's possible to sell it for around $15, so I recommend doing that to help you recover some of the money spent on that $140 1GB module. You should do it ASAP because the longer you wait, the less that stick will be worth.

makaveli559m · #22 Post by **makaveli559m** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:15 pm

I fixed up my A20m
I got an 80 gig HD
upgraded to an 850mhz Pentium 3 cpu
went up to 512MB of RAM
and a new battery

I like the resaults
good battery life and good cpu and plenty of space lol

zachsandberg · #23 Post by **zachsandberg** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 3:27 pm

I own 3 R50s, 2 (1842-slu)'s and an (1834-au1) I got yesterday with a bad screen. All three are powered by the Celeron M.
Your choice to upgrade from the 256mb ram was good, although like said before, you could've gotten it cheaper.

In my opinion you did not get ripped off at all, as thinkpads do hold their value longer than say dells, or *shudder* compaqs with similar specs. Build quality overall is worth more to me than cpu specs, or blazing speed, although still important on the whole.

My Celeron M at 1.4ghz benchmarks very close to my Pentium 4 desktop in terms of CPU performance, and is faster than the 2.66ghz Celeron in my server. (super-pi)

Check out http://zachsandberg.homeip.net/project-files-v2/r50.php

Zach

Can someone tell me if I overpaid for my laptop?

Can someone tell me if I overpaid for my laptop?

R50 Great Machine

Who is online