WTB: used laptop PC

[Soviet Conscript]

I'm looking for a used but in good working condition laptop. my budget is $150 shipped but i've seen some half-decent older laptops go for that so it would have to be a good system. this is mostly going to be for school work, writeing papers and the internet so i'm not worried about if its set up for gameing. operateing system can be any windows even 95. my only real requirments are

$150 or lower shipped
MUST be wireless internet ready. i mean that i can take it right out of the box and link up to my home wireless network. don't want to have to run down to walmart for anything.
no Macs, PC's only
and i need to have the ac adaptor with it.
also of course it must be in working condition with a working screen. its ok if its banged up a little cosmeticly though.

oh, I can only pay by Paypal through a CC at the moment.

thanks.

[Joe West]

you ever try tigerdirect.com they have some laptops for around 300.00, get a credit card thru them and your payments will be about 15--20 bucks per month

[DeputyMoniker]

Try the buying & selling forum here:
http://www.computerpoweruser.com

[Soviet Conscript]

i'll check that site out, thanks

but i'm really just looking for something cheap for internet/writeing . honestly if its a piece of crap from 1999 loaded with 95 i'll still take it. as long as its set up for wireless and it runs.

[nate1749]

I love old junky laptops (like the one you're looking for) and time and time again I love the classic gateway solo 9300. It's upgradeable to some fairly decent specs (256 megs of ram and a dvd burner and can even support 2 hard drives), but more than anything else it always runs. I literally own 3 of them and give them out to people who need the computer (that work for me) for just say excel and basic internet. They run great on w/win 98 or 2000 (which is what I use) and drivers are always a snap. Most importantly they don't break! Between my dad and I we've gone through about 3 dells and a sony since the late 90s, but all 3 of the gateways (i had a fourth one, but sold it to a friend, still works) are still running strong (this is when gateway was a great company).

Anyways, the best thing about them is how cheap you can always get them on ebay, always less than $150. The specs are normally p3 600mhz-ish, 128megs of ram, cdrom, 14.1 screen (bright, never have had any problems with brightness or lines or anything like that).

As for internet, yeah you'll have to go buy a cheap pcmcia card if the seller doesn't include one.

Linux loves em too if you ever go that route. eBay is always your best route. Good luck.

Nate

[Mezmoron]

I have a pretty good laptop available, but there is no power cord. It's an HP with 512mb ram and is only about 2 years old.

Ken

[Soviet Conscript]

I have a pretty good laptop available, but there is no power cord. It's an HP with 512mb ram and is only about 2 years old.

Ken

I may be intrested. could you list anything else about it? model, HD space, OS, does it have a cd-rom drive or floppy drive? wireless card? overall condition? what you would want for it?

i pretty much need a power cord but if i can buy one off ebay or whatever they will probibly arrive here around the same time. i never owned a laptop before, do they pretty much all use the same kind of power cable or is buying without a cable a not so good move?

and thanks for the tip nate1749. if i can't find anything on the forums i may go for one of those solo 9300's. theres a few i found on ebay that look decent.

[DeputyMoniker]

You shouldn't have hard time finding a power cord for it if you google the model #. Many laptops use the same one since they buy them from the same company. (Dell, for instance, doesn't manufacture their own.) You'll still have to google it though because they change.

[jonjandran]

Here's a much better site for used laptops:
http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.aspx?catid=45&entercat=y (http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.aspx?catid=45&flcache=8405328)