21-30k Buying used Thinkpads from laptop resellers in BLR ?

theagilecoder

theagilecoder

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I talked to several of these laptop reselling shops in the city - they generally get the laptops from either MNCs in India or outside.
The laptops in question are Thinkpad X1 Carbons and Yoga - generally with 8th -10th gen Intel processor and out of company warranty but ~1 month reseller warranty.
For some reasons I only require these models only and getting them new is out of budget.
I am a fairly experienced user and can carry out basic h/w repairs myself.
I have dealt with personal users in olx/fb marketplace but never with resellers - checking if anyone of you would have good/bad experiences with them ?
 
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A lot of us here have purchased refurbished desktops, esp SFF/USFF desktops that otherwise tend to be incredibly pricey.
However I would refrain from buying refurb laptops.

Reason being that desktops are inherently more robust - and because they are sitting at an office desk will see minimal to no abuse.
Corporate laptops are another story though. Even the most ethical users do not necessarily treat them with a lot of TLC during the usage period
 
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My thinkpad t480s, bought it from one of those olx refurb sellers 2 years back, still working great. Nice guy, he was selling refurb laptops as somewhat of a side hustle which slowly became his main business. Delivered it to my house itself with his wife lol. He did an upgrade from 8 gigs to 16 gigs of ram for me as well (Couldn't be bothered to figure that out myself, too much bs going on in life at that time). It's a hit and a miss, if you can find small independent vendors like this, I trust them to take their QCs seriously. Those stores that focus on refurb stuff? Not at all.
 
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superczar said:
A lot of us here have purchased refurbished desktops, esp SFF/USFF desktops that otherwise tend to be incredibly pricey.
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I did buy a refurbished Dell Optiplex Micro USFF from an olx seller who got it off Amazon. The device was sold to me with an underpowered adapter. It took messaging the CTO on LinkedIn to get the correct adapter delivered.
I am looking at business class laptops as they generally have better parts availability and upgradability. This quest of finding the right laptop from a reliable person/vendor is making me question my decision now.

Rezep said:
It's a hit and a miss, if you can find small independent vendors like this, I trust them to take their QCs seriously.
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True. The problem is how to find such reliable vendors. I visited a local vendor today and checked a few laptops. But it's a refurb IT company and they offer just 1 month guarantee.
 
manu007 said:
hey. did you go ahead with this? I am looking into used business laptops, particularly Lenovo Thinkpad T series and Dell Latitude series.
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Yes bought a X1 Yoga (10th gen intel) for 35k and and a X13 Yoga (10th gen intel) for 30k. Both battery health around 90% and in great condition, but out of warranty. Two different resellers, both gave me 1 month testing warranties.
 
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I never seem to understand the refurb Laptop scene, here in India, for devices that are somewhere in between primordial and pretty recent. Sites like hilaptop et al. ooze shadiness, OLX is a hit or miss, filled with non-native sellers and their scary WhatsApp invitations. Other places have scanty inventory. Maybe the FB groups is the answer but far from hassle-free.
I got my X230 from a personal seller on OLX cutting the middleman. I'd advise cut the middle-person, if possible.
 
My friend bought a Carbon X1 from one such source in Delhi and was quite satisfied. So much so, that he bought a second one a few years later. They are bang for the buck. I'd suggest going down to their warehouse or store to check the laptops in person and picking up the piece that's in the best condition.

The guy we went to had an office full of laptops, which he claimed were shelved by corporations. They were generally in good condition.
 
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sibot said:
My friend bought a Carbon X1 from one such source in Delhi and was quite satisfied. So much so, that he bought a second one a few years later. They are bang for the buck. I'd suggest going down to their warehouse or store to check the laptops in person and picking up the piece that's in the best condition.

The guy we went to had an office full of laptops, which he claimed were shelved by corporations. They were generally in good condition.
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Can you please DM me the name and location of this source?
 
mr824 said:
I never seem to understand the refurb Laptop scene, here in India, for devices that are somewhere in between primordial and pretty recent. Sites like hilaptop et al. ooze shadiness, OLX is a hit or miss, filled with non-native sellers and their scary WhatsApp invitations. Other places have scanty inventory. Maybe the FB groups is the answer but far from hassle-free.
I got my X230 from a personal seller on OLX cutting the middleman. I'd advise cut the middle-person, if possible.
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Let me try to explain as per my conversations with several resellers on how they get these laptops and also with IT dept of my MNC. Laptops are of two types - consumer line and corporate line (thinkpads, elitebooks). I have always bought consumer line laptops as I didnt know about corporate line. Consumer line laptops are poorly build to encourage planned obsolescence. While corporate line laptops have great build quality as thier contracts are strictly enforced by the corporate they sell to and they sell in bulk. My MNC buys 5000 thinkpads every year.
Now many MNCs update these laptops every 3-4 years and when they do that they auction it - mostly its physical auction for companies in BLR, the guy in IT dept of MNC calls these resellers on a physical location. and many of these resellers get a lot of 10/20/50 laptops at throwaway prices. Ex - 3 year old X1 carbon with 10th/11th gen intel at 20-25k. New thinkpads if a customer were to buy it, its always above 1.5 lakhs. And you cannot imagine to get carbon fiber or magnesium build laptops in consumer line laptops. Then they usually mark it up by 50% and sell it. My X1 Yoga was from Cisco office india and X13 Yoga was from some company in singapore. The reseller of my X13 Yoga told me he gets 50-100 pieces per month from middle east and sgp through chennai import route. He attends those auctions online. I got X13 Yoga with full Magnesium build, fully convertible with in-garage pen, 92% battery, in-built sim slot in which Jio sim works great, laptop barely used for 500 hours in 3 years according to crystal disk ssd usage. He had 10 pieces - I checked each and chose the least used one. I would say it was a killer deal for 30k. Such resellers are mostly on FB marketplace/OLX.
I also talked to a a few thinkpad owners who directly bought these from Lenovo site for 1.5-2 lakhs and thus obviously they were not willing to sell me from less than 60k-80k (understandable!!) so not taking from them was an obvious choise - also resellers mostly have shops. My resellers had a spanky medium size shop with ~ 50 laptops on display in HSR layout so I know they are not going anywhere.

I will never buy a consumer laptop anymore - thinkpads are built like a tank, they are lightweight thanks to exotic materials and replacement parts are easily available. Hope my experience helps.
roygarg said:
Anyone have any good source in Bangalore?
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I can share my two reseller's contacts. DM me.
 
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Few months back , i tried to get used thinkpads in blore , most the sellers are junk , 8 gb , 10 year old think pads sold at 24 k . Very poor aftermarket battery , with no backup. Finally I got a brand new E16 from Lenovo website itself.
Buy from te classifieds. Don't waste time buying from outside.
 
nfsnfs said:
Few months back , i tried to get used thinkpads in blore , most the sellers are junk , 8 gb , 10 year old think pads sold at 24 k . Very poor aftermarket battery , with no backup. Finally I got a brand new E16 from Lenovo website itself.
Buy from te classifieds. Don't waste time buying from outside.
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My thinkpad hunting in blr using FB marketplace was quite nice. X series such as X1C, X1Y, X13 with Intel 8th/10th gen and 16gb ram available in 20s -30s (depending on touch capability). T series for around 5k lower. E series is even lower as its budget series. Lowest battery health I saw was 82%. Most resellers gave me video demo and let me install vantage/batmon to check battery health on video and also if BIOS is locked or not.
 
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