gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
TL;DR: Drove 1.5 hrs to the nearest BestBuy that had a deal on an open-box (excellent condition) laptop for $435 (normally $600). Showed up, asked if I could open it there; contents were…just a scratched up laptop (not even a charger). Complained to manager and ended up leaving with a brand new laptop with no up charge.
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Current laptop with issues:
CyberPowerPC Fangbook (7+ years old): 15.6”, 6th-gen i7, Nvidia GTX 970M GPU. Paid $1254 then.
Perfectly fine for the light gaming I do; however, the keyboard is getting worse and worse, battery life is abysmal, runs very hot, even with light use. Some keys, especially the ‘S’ key, don’t work most of the time, maybe a dozen others are more sporadic. I used to travel a good amount with this laptop, but now use it on my lap almost always, playing mostly strategy games, like Civilization 5/6, Frost Punk, etc. I have to use a cooling pad most of the time, because it gets very hot. I don’t use it often off the charger, but when I do the battery doesn’t last very long. The charging port is also starting to fail. I was hoping to get a few more gears out of it, but that’s not going to happen. I’ll keep it as a spare to my main PC, since all of the ports still work.
My main PC is very old (1st-gen i7-920, 12 GB DDR3 RAM) - only upgraded PSU, HDD —> SSD, GPU (1070 ti), wireless PCI-e card. Still works perfectly, and I can play older games on max. This may replace both if the main PC dies.
Deal:
Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3: 15.6”, Ryzen 5 5600H, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, 3050 ti GPU. A nice upgrade without going crazy with spec’s I’ll never need. The savings will afford me the ability to upgrade the second m.2 slot (SSD) and RAM with parts I already have.
$435 open-box (excellent): should be everything in new condition, everything intact and included. Normal price is $599.99 currently.
The only BestBuy that had one in this condition was 1.5 hrs away. I knew I was taking a risk, but decided to give it a go for this price.
Problem:
Despite the 2* Yelp review for this BestBuy I showed up and found all of the staff throughout this ordeal to be very friendly, if not initially very helpful. The pickup lady even let me open the plain brown box the laptop came in right there, which was nice. The box was filled with a ton of bubble wrap, which was nice to see. What wasn’t so nice to see was that the laptop was in there all by its lonesome; no power cord/brick, no user‘s manual, nothing else. The laptop itself had residue from some tape being ripped off, scratches on the case and, upon booting it up, it was still on some weird screen that wasn’t the typical W11 setup screen. Maybe a display model? My heart dropped…
The first lady sent me to the Geek Squad, who tried to send me on my way by handing me a charging cord. The guy initially asked me what kind of cord I needed, “is that a USB C?” It’s a weird proprietary cord, so it took a little while to get me the right cord.
I told him this wasn’t in excellent condition and what comes with “excellent” is everything, and no weird wear on the laptop itself. THIS is a used laptop. I was lucky that a very helpful (eventually) manager came to discuss the issue. I held my cool, explained that this isn’t what I drove so far for and, when she offered to reduce the price $10 to “fair” condition, mentioned that the whole thing felt like a bait and switch. She walked away for a few minutes and I just knew I was walking away empty-handed.
When she came back I was pleasantly surprised when she offered me A new laptop for $70 more. Good enough. Then, without prompting, she offered a straight up “exchange” for a new one!
The laptop is great and works perfectly, though I’ll have to get used to Windows 11. I’ve already upgraded the RAM to 16GB of GSKILLS and added a second 1TB Samsung Evo 980 m.2 2280 that I already had for something else. I actually bought a second identical RAM stick for $36, but it wouldn‘t post in either slot, both with the other identical stick nor by itself. I returned it and need to decide if I actually NEED 32GB of RAM. To be honest, if I didn’t already have a 16GB stick I’d have gone for two 8s to get 16 AND dual channel. I’m sure it’ll be fine in single channel for the games I play and the light productivity I’ll use it for.
In the end I got extremely lucky. The price is great for a laptop I hope will give me many years of service.
The only downsides so far:
1. the screen is nice, but it is not bright. I need to run it at max or close to it, even with no direct sunlight inside. Minor issue.
2. someone online posted that the video output is only from the CPU, not the GPU, so if I ever need to hook this up to an external monitor or TV it won’t be able to utilize the GPU. I don’t foresee an issue for my intended use.
3. the main SSD is an m.2 2242, which is not only small, but uncommon. It‘s good enough for the OS and a few games, but I’ll have to switch over everything to the second drive (eg, my document, pictures, etc).
The Steam Deck takes a 2230, so that’s out of the question.
—————
Current laptop with issues:
CyberPowerPC Fangbook (7+ years old): 15.6”, 6th-gen i7, Nvidia GTX 970M GPU. Paid $1254 then.
Perfectly fine for the light gaming I do; however, the keyboard is getting worse and worse, battery life is abysmal, runs very hot, even with light use. Some keys, especially the ‘S’ key, don’t work most of the time, maybe a dozen others are more sporadic. I used to travel a good amount with this laptop, but now use it on my lap almost always, playing mostly strategy games, like Civilization 5/6, Frost Punk, etc. I have to use a cooling pad most of the time, because it gets very hot. I don’t use it often off the charger, but when I do the battery doesn’t last very long. The charging port is also starting to fail. I was hoping to get a few more gears out of it, but that’s not going to happen. I’ll keep it as a spare to my main PC, since all of the ports still work.
My main PC is very old (1st-gen i7-920, 12 GB DDR3 RAM) - only upgraded PSU, HDD —> SSD, GPU (1070 ti), wireless PCI-e card. Still works perfectly, and I can play older games on max. This may replace both if the main PC dies.
Deal:
Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3: 15.6”, Ryzen 5 5600H, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, 3050 ti GPU. A nice upgrade without going crazy with spec’s I’ll never need. The savings will afford me the ability to upgrade the second m.2 slot (SSD) and RAM with parts I already have.
$435 open-box (excellent): should be everything in new condition, everything intact and included. Normal price is $599.99 currently.
The only BestBuy that had one in this condition was 1.5 hrs away. I knew I was taking a risk, but decided to give it a go for this price.
Problem:
Despite the 2* Yelp review for this BestBuy I showed up and found all of the staff throughout this ordeal to be very friendly, if not initially very helpful. The pickup lady even let me open the plain brown box the laptop came in right there, which was nice. The box was filled with a ton of bubble wrap, which was nice to see. What wasn’t so nice to see was that the laptop was in there all by its lonesome; no power cord/brick, no user‘s manual, nothing else. The laptop itself had residue from some tape being ripped off, scratches on the case and, upon booting it up, it was still on some weird screen that wasn’t the typical W11 setup screen. Maybe a display model? My heart dropped…
The first lady sent me to the Geek Squad, who tried to send me on my way by handing me a charging cord. The guy initially asked me what kind of cord I needed, “is that a USB C?” It’s a weird proprietary cord, so it took a little while to get me the right cord.
I told him this wasn’t in excellent condition and what comes with “excellent” is everything, and no weird wear on the laptop itself. THIS is a used laptop. I was lucky that a very helpful (eventually) manager came to discuss the issue. I held my cool, explained that this isn’t what I drove so far for and, when she offered to reduce the price $10 to “fair” condition, mentioned that the whole thing felt like a bait and switch. She walked away for a few minutes and I just knew I was walking away empty-handed.
When she came back I was pleasantly surprised when she offered me A new laptop for $70 more. Good enough. Then, without prompting, she offered a straight up “exchange” for a new one!
The laptop is great and works perfectly, though I’ll have to get used to Windows 11. I’ve already upgraded the RAM to 16GB of GSKILLS and added a second 1TB Samsung Evo 980 m.2 2280 that I already had for something else. I actually bought a second identical RAM stick for $36, but it wouldn‘t post in either slot, both with the other identical stick nor by itself. I returned it and need to decide if I actually NEED 32GB of RAM. To be honest, if I didn’t already have a 16GB stick I’d have gone for two 8s to get 16 AND dual channel. I’m sure it’ll be fine in single channel for the games I play and the light productivity I’ll use it for.
In the end I got extremely lucky. The price is great for a laptop I hope will give me many years of service.
The only downsides so far:
1. the screen is nice, but it is not bright. I need to run it at max or close to it, even with no direct sunlight inside. Minor issue.
2. someone online posted that the video output is only from the CPU, not the GPU, so if I ever need to hook this up to an external monitor or TV it won’t be able to utilize the GPU. I don’t foresee an issue for my intended use.
3. the main SSD is an m.2 2242, which is not only small, but uncommon. It‘s good enough for the OS and a few games, but I’ll have to switch over everything to the second drive (eg, my document, pictures, etc).
The Steam Deck takes a 2230, so that’s out of the question.
