I’ve been trying to find Thinkpad laptops with specifications equivalent to, or better than my old Ideapad with i5-8265U. So far, I’ve only been using Ebay. Unless explicitly mentioned, all prices are without shipping charges. This time, I’ve restricted myself to the following rules:
- Assume +100$ for all product (international shipping)
- Look for 8th, 9th and 10th gen Intel processors, and 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen AMD processors.
- 8 (assuming SODIMM is free for another 8GB)/16/32GB of RAM
- 256GB (if device is cheap, I can upgrade it myself)/512GB/1TB
- Pick devices with 8th gen Intel processors under 200$
- Pick devices with 9th gen Intel and 1st gen Ryzen processors under 250$
- Pick devices with 10th gen Intel and 2nd/3rd gen Ryzen processors under 300$
- Assume an extra 50-100$ for workstation dGPU
- Do not buy anything higher than 450$ (with shipping price included)
However, to my surprise, 8th gen devices are still being sold around 250-350$, 9th gen devices and almost every Ryzen-based devices are non-existent, and 10th gen devices are surprisingly the same or lower than 8th gen, but their prices get inflated after auction - perhaps by shill bidding bots.
I also can’t figure out this - why are there no listings from Europe or Middle East? Shipping from America is too expensive (although way cheaper that the local listings here).
How can I get better for finding used/refurbished/renewed Thinkpad?
I paid $450 USD for a first gen X1 Yoga back in 2019 on eBay. Best advice is to either be patient and check eBay regularly or make friends with somone in IT close to you and get them to let you know when a local business is doing an upgrade.
Recently, there’s been a bunch of sellers selling T480 at 600$. Like, what the fuck? Some are even offering their old, battered X220 for what, 700$? This is just daylight robbery.