How to Buy a Second Hand Toshiba Laptop Part One
Most Toshiba Laptops are well made, durable, are high quality, proven reliably and packed with many features!
First of all you need to establish some criteria for selecting your new purchase.
Your Budget
What the machine is going to be used for
Features required
Battery Life
Internet ready
Condition
Warranty
Your Budget
Working only to a budget is a good way to buy, but you can miss out on much better machines unless you read the following.
Work out realistically what you have to spend on a selected machine and compare prices either on the Internet or off it.
Your aim here is to get the best possible machine for the money available to you.
A typical pitfall here is to look at the cheapest machine on offer in a given situation and then comparing it to a more modern machine, you cannot realistically compare more modern machines with older machines unless the sales pricing is virtually equal then you can include higher spec machines.
If laptop purchase price is to far away from your budget then work within the suggestions above.
If your working on the upper end of the budget spectrum, around 375-650GBP(400USD~750USD) then here are the best bargains available, but generally speaking most purchases will be from 90GBP-250GBP (100USD~300USD) within the Second hand Toshiba Laptop sector.
Always work to you budget and do your research before you buy.
What Your machine is going to be used for
This is often a very overlooked topic, when buying your next Toshiba write down exactly what the machine will be used for, if its for very basic use then see below as an example.
Word processing
Emailing occasionally
The odd download here and there
Wireless
Machine will be static and fixed permanently
Basic Internet browsing, viewing websites
Educational and Homework duties
Occasional DVD films and program installs
.... this is a typical classification of a machine that requires relatively light duties, its not going to be used very often or moved frequently, and judging form the requirements fits a children's or very early teens homework machine. I could recommend the following for this task
High end PIII machine such as a Toshiba Sat 1100, Sat 1000s/3000z (you will need to buy a cardbus WIFI card) or a Toshiba Sat 4600 (WIFI internal),Tecra 9000 series(built in WIFI and Bluetooth) or a Sat Pro 6000 (with WIFI built in).
Low end to Mid range P4 Celeron such as a Toshiba Sat 1110, Sat Pro 1130,(both cardbus WIFI required) Sat Pro 6050(PIII1200 inc built in WIFI), Tecra 9100(P4 built in WIFI), Sat S1900 but more pricey.
Average Prices as low as 80GBP up to about 175GBP (95USD~200USD)
Another example
Photo shop capability
DVD and CDR writing
Web design
Very light gaming (depends on the games requirement)
Flash graphics work
Some DTP work
WIFI capable
Does it need to be that portable? battery life questions?
This class is really in the mid to high end second hand bracket, Minimum spec here would be a P4 2.8Gig/3.2Gig machine, large screen 15.4" or 15" may be a requirement, as is a 32M /64M ATI/NVidia graphics solution (as a bare minimum), and might be essential for Photo shop. I would recommend a machine with at least a bare minimum of 768M but 1Gig or more is better for this type of work, 60gig minimum disk space and at least three UBD ports. To sum this machine could be for a university student looking for a powerful cheap design machine or a semi professional DTP user.
Toshiba Satellite P20/25 Series P4 machines (were originally Multimedia/lifestyle machines)
Toshiba Tecra M10 series centrino with 64M Nvidia graphics solutions
Toshiba Tecra M3 Series Centrino with Nvidia graphics solutions (but with a smaller 14.1" screen)
Toshiba Sat M40 Centrino (533Mhz bus) 15.4 wide screen display (M30 not suitable but cheaper)
Toshiba Sat A60 P4 2.6 or above (don't buy the celeron version) 15" screen
Toshiba Sat M60 Series are very good High end Centrinos with a 15.4" screen
Prices form a Low 165GBP to 280GBP (180~310USD) depending on condition and spec
and finally another example
EBay usage
Web browsing
Office 2003 or above
Accounts packages
WIFI and WAN and LAN capable
2xUSB
Good Battery essential
Reasonably small footprint size but not below a 13.3" display
Good Keyboard quality
Weight under 2.5Kg
This is the classic business machine setup, I would only recommend Centrinos for this kind of work simply because the machine has a requirement for being used out of the office and away from a mains supply for some periods of time and Centrino's are much more power efficient and can be controlled better, than say a P4, Older Celeron P4's and PIII machines would not get a look in here. Plus the heat given of from centrino's are much less than say a High end P4 3Gig machine, at least if you have to use it on your lap you can without it getting too hot!
Interestingly some Centrino Duo machines come into the picture here as well. Wide screen or very large screens here at not essential since the user will be spending time using word processors, browsing emails, using spreadsheets, and will probably benefit from using a smaller machine than lugging around a really big machine from a 15.4" upwards.
Also in the business world you have to consider not only lugging around the laptop but any paper work and accessories as well, with really big laptops this can be a big disadvantage. Another criteria is a nice keyboard action or a machine that has a good qaulity keyboard that's well laid out and has some palm rest space to rest your hands on when in contant use.
Toshiba Tecra M2 Series machines with a 14.1" screen and a Combo drive in case you need to burn data.
Toshiba Sat L10 and L20 Machines (but only after its been upgraded to a centrino) celerons are not up to it.
Toshiba M5 (Centrino Duo) but not many around 14.1"
Toshiba Tecra S1 Series both the 15" and 14.1" machines.
Toshiba Satellite M50 Machine 14.1 windscreen which is a great machine for this kind of work
Prices from about 160GBP up to 220GBP (180USD~290USD) should get some you good machines
I haven't really touched on gaming, the reason being is that most second hand machines are really not up to the task, despite what some dealers will tell you (unless your playing very old games), most very recent games require very strict hardware specifications which really means that its out of most peoples budget, the second thing is unless you spend at least £1000GBP(1500USD) you will not get a laptop that is capable of running very modern games. Better to buy a game console or buy a high end PC at half the price of a high end laptop and at least you can upgrade it as you go along.
I would like to thank you for reading this far and in Part Two we will be looking at the next section- Features required For Now
Author: Benny Holden