Not to be advertising but weve sold a ton of Vaios on E-bay and after the typical problems are repaired on them they are an Xl'nt machine.. IE: RAM slots solder joints, Power supply issues, Thermal related issues.. We sold a nice VAIO FX-370 last week to a gal in Alabama for instance.. 900 Mhz Mobile, 512 RAM 20 gig hdd, 15" screen, DVD/CDRW. All around great little notebook for 600.00 shipped to her door. We are starting to get too busy with the repair busines that weve prety much quit selling on E-bay but we still build and sell units if sombody needs them. If you do buy off E-bay just be sure they have an excellent rep. and theyre in good standing.. (High positive number of feedbacks) If they are down around say 96%? I'd steer clear.. (Weve been burned and getting your cash back is like pulling teeth).. If you need a notebook and we can help we'd be glad to accomidate your needs. our e-bay id is wwwikenfixitcom (no dots) website is the same with the dots.. There are a ton of excellent and reputable sellers on the web and our business got a boost through online auctions! Ken
www.ikenfixit.com
The old Dell Inspiron is getting impossible. The new battery takes a week to fully charge (Seven days! Really!) and it only lasts an hour an half when it does. Pointer is getting worse and worse about running wild. Windows Me just doesn't get it done. Not cost-effective to repair and upgrade, but I don't want to shell out for a brand new one, so I'm thinking e-Bay. One of my daughters got a pretty good Sony Vaio that way, so I figure it's worth a shot.
I want the notebook mostly for word processing away from a desk. Blinding speed isn't terribly important. (The Dell is a 533 Mhz Pentium and it gets the job done just fine. When it's working.) Performance in general is not a serious issue. Reliability, on the other hand, is. And battery life is near the top of the list of desired features. I understand that a Pentium M chip is good for battery life. Have they been around long enough to be available used? If not, what's the next best bet? Cheap is not that high a priority. Any reasonably priced used machine should be OK. Maybe $400, maybe $700. . .but not $1000+.
For that money I would want at least a good-quality 15" TFT display. Maybe 17", but not if it will play havoc with battery life. A second battery bay would be nice, but not absolutely necessary if it gets four or more hours with one battery.
So what brand should I look for? What model?
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