Buying laptops without RAM/disk: much of a price decrease?

[calvinb]

I'm curious if excluding the RAM and HD from buying a used laptop would decrease the price by much, or if there's a cheap source of beaters like that. I've got some spares and it'd be nice to find a home for them, as well as have a nice spare machine. (I think I'd still want a battery though, but that might end up being hard to find the proper mix of bring-your-own parts.)

[brchan]

Yes, but there seems to be a bit of variation between the price drops for used. On the other hand, buying a laptop with a minimal ram, cpu (assuming both non soldered), and disk configuration will almost certainly drop the price substantially. It will also be much cheaper to upgrade yourself.

[Neil]

In my experience, used laptops without RAM/HDD do sell for less that fully equipped units. But the cost of adding those parts later is usually more than finding a good deal with all the components you will want already included.

The best deals I've found were machines with RAM/HDD, but with some kind of defect somewhere that made them seem almost worthless to the owner. But, in today's market, a laptop that is a year or two old, already seems useless to many companies and individuals. Excellent deals abound.

[theterminator93]

Certainly. I had an occasion where I had no need for the hard disk in a computer for sale (due to my installing an SSD in its place) and no need for the RAM due to having a horde of spare modules already on hand. I contacted the seller of the item and asked if they would consider a sale without the RAM or HDD (and in my case, no AC adapter) for a discount, and they agreed. I got the price from $250 down to $200.

What Neil says is also quite valid. A machine that had a broken palm rest, no HDD and no battery or AC adapter I got for $100 when others of the same type/spec were going for over twice that. Less than $50 in parts and you couldn't tell the difference between them now.

[TonyJZX]

As always.. it depends.

I buy mine as mainly "not working but boots to bios". This means they are ex lease units with ram but no hdd and often is missing the hdd frame and even the caddy.

So you need to buy ssd, frame, screws, and sometimes the faceplate.

Its substantially cheaper as there's no guarantee it will work and there's no o/s etc so many people are scared of reinstalling the o.s.

I have gotten machines as cheap as $50 USD for t410 420 machines.

I have no issue with 2 x 2 Gb ram. Win7 loaders are fine and I have a supply of cheap 120/240 gb hdds.


WORKING laptops with a 3month warranty has a premium as people want a turnkey solution.

An example is that I bought a 420 recently from a dealer that is in VGood condition but it has a copy of WIn10 Pro and Office 2016 Pro on it which is multiples more than what the laptop is worth.

God knows how the dealer did this but I pulled the drive for an Win7 install anyway.