Searching for a Refurbished Laptop

[Appletax]

I am searching for a ~$300 reburbished laptop for my girlfriend for her birthday.

Is there anything better than this?: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-re...lid-state-drive-black/5513908.p?skuId=5513908

It's got to come with an SSD and have at least an i5

Are there any particular websites I should be checking?

 

[occsean]

Try arrowdirect.com. Also, I have been finding that Arrow Direct uses neweggbusiness and believe it or not walmart to sell their machines. I have found them cheaper on WalMart and NewEgg with a 1 year warranty, which you will not get if buying direct from arrow. You can try Evertek as well. They sometimes have decent deals but shipping is high. And there's Synnex too.

Also, FWIW I wouldn't get hung up on an SSD as you can always swap one in.

I personally like the HP Elitebook/ProBook models and the G1 and G2's

Good luck

 

[Markverhyden]

128gb SSD is almost useless. I'd look on eBay for used business machines from a seller with excellent reviews.

 

[HCHTech]

It's got to come with an SSD and have at least an i5

for $300, that's stretching it quite a bit. D&H starts @ about $370 for those specs with a spinning disk. The cheapest one I see with a 256SSD is more like $500. I would pick something and do the SSD swap myself in your shoes.

 

[timeshifter]

I've had good luck with www.thinkgreenpc.com

 

[fencepost]

Gamer or non-gamer? And is she a touchpad user or does she insist on an external mouse?

I like used Thinkpads, and $300 would buy you plenty. If she never uses touchpads then a T440 (or T440s or T440p) is a viable option, but (IMO) the touchpads on them were abysmal and I can't understand how Lenovo even brought them to market. The Tx50 series was much improved but will likely be out of your budget, the Tx30 series are pretty good but are perhaps heavy for current tastes.

If she's a gamer, you'll probably drop from 4th-generation back to 3rd generation and the T430 (and variants) or T530, and add "Nvidia" to your searches. If she's not a gamer, the better 3rd-generation chips are the first ones with relatively decent graphics performance from the Intel chipset.