I’ve bought three laptops this year from eBay. The second was shortly after the first because I thought it was such a good deal.
A few months later the first laptops exhaust started smelling like burning plastic and i also discovered that if you move the lid/screen a certain way the laptop hard freezes. A few months after that same smell from the second laptop (different model/seller) that progressed into a proper burning smell. In both cases I’m out my purchase price and for the total could have bought new.
On a whim after coming across the thinkpad subreddit I bought a t480s recently. As soon as I got it paid attention to folding the hinges excessively and noticed it creaks sometimes and the exhaust also gets a little too toasty. So this one is going back.
I’m not against used. I’m a lifelong 2nd hand buyer. No problems with phones or even mini pcs.
I don’t recommend laptops anymore tho. Too delicate and can have hidden issues.
If you read this far. It’s not enviornmental cus my bought new laptop (4yo) doesn’t have any issues. And also I did take off the back cover in both laptops and didn’t see any obvious blown parts. And neither are overheating from sensor data even under p95
If you're not against supporting Apple, their laptops always seem to have the most longevity. I am still running my M1 with 8G of RAM and it out performs the latest "top of the line" Windows laptops my work are handing out.
Prior to this one I had a MacBook Pro for about 7 years and before that one the black plastic MacBooks from 2007.
We use multiple M1 airs as dev machines and they're all still working perfectly fine and very fast, nothing has broken, on top of that they were all bought used. We're not looking to replace them any time soon. Not an Apple fanatic personally (don't own a single iProduct), but the M series of laptops is extremely well built and performant. I expect them to last at least 6 years from time of purchase.
My first generation M1 Macbook Pro has been a great workhorse as well. It is still chugging along. The backlight on the keyboard is a distant memory. One of the two USB-C ports decided to retire its data bus. It also made a high voltage arc and rebooted earlier today for the first time ever. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out the speakers were spared any damage during this process.
It came back online right away as if nothing happened and has outstanding battery life that's still making the M1 Max envious.
Some eBay ex-enterprise laptops include vendor warranty that can sometimes be extended. Dell US-based ProSupport and Lenovo International Warranty (3 years, optional years extra) offer competent phone support and relatively quick repairs. Well worth the insurance for mobile computing devices in a hostile world.
We only buy new and kept ours until they die, and they sure die or become quirky in ways we'd be pissed about if we bought it in that state.
The big issue is of course repairability: buying a second hand business DELL Opiplex is mostly fine because replacing anything other than the motherboard/power supply will be dead simple, and even that can be managed either through salvaging or diy. A flacky or half broken laptop is a world of hurt, for any brand, even if you're into soldering.
A few months later the first laptops exhaust started smelling like burning plastic and i also discovered that if you move the lid/screen a certain way the laptop hard freezes. A few months after that same smell from the second laptop (different model/seller) that progressed into a proper burning smell. In both cases I’m out my purchase price and for the total could have bought new.
On a whim after coming across the thinkpad subreddit I bought a t480s recently. As soon as I got it paid attention to folding the hinges excessively and noticed it creaks sometimes and the exhaust also gets a little too toasty. So this one is going back.
I’m not against used. I’m a lifelong 2nd hand buyer. No problems with phones or even mini pcs.
I don’t recommend laptops anymore tho. Too delicate and can have hidden issues.
If you read this far. It’s not enviornmental cus my bought new laptop (4yo) doesn’t have any issues. And also I did take off the back cover in both laptops and didn’t see any obvious blown parts. And neither are overheating from sensor data even under p95