2nd Hand Thinkpad Bargains

Greetings all,

I just like to share my positive experience that acquiring a decent spec Thinkpad doesn't have to be at all expensive. I live in the UK and we don't get blessed full of Lenovo coupons and special offers that the US gets. Frustrated but undeterred I decided to look at the Lenovo Thinkpad models that were discontinued recently that offer similar performance without the wallet bashing price tag that they usually come with.

My first Thinkpad was an IBM Thinkpad R50e which was bought brand new (for £515) back in 2005 and I loved it. Over the years though as I needed a bit more power I had an Acer Aspire and a Toshiba Satellite Pro but none of them came close in terms of the user experience and build quality of my R50e. Eventually I decided to revert back to the trusted Thinkpad brand, as I was tight for cash at the time, getting a new Thinkpad from online retailers was way out of my initial budget. So I decided to look at eBay and manage to source a brand new Lenovo Thinkpad R61e for £340 with Intel Centrino equipped. However, as my little sister was about to enter university and had no laptop at the time (plus her birthday was coming up anyway) I decided to give it to her and she was extremely happy. I had to wait an extra 3 months before I was able to afford a Thinkpad of my own again and it was a slightly used Thinkpad R61e with the Intel Centrino Santa Rosa platform. I bought it for £380 and I was pleased as it worked great and came just in time before my first job.

Over the weeks I decided to check eBay as I’ve got a bit more cash from my job and found an auction for a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with Centrino Pro platform. I always wanted a T series Thinkpad but was priced out before to even consider. I decided to make a curious bid of £400 thinking “it will never fetch that low” for a 14.1” T61. To my surprise I did acquire it, and for only £370 it was actually cheaper than my R61e. My colleagues was a bit startled seeing double when my T61 arrived at the office along my R61e, but I was extremely happy owning my first ever T series laptop. I did thought of selling off my R61e but I decided to keep it for testing purposes, now I’m running Ubuntu Linux on my R61e alongside with XP on my T61. Generally now I use my Thinkpad T61 frequently at work and recently took it to Germany for two exhibitions (EuroCIS & CeBit 2009) and it hasn’t faltered once. My boss even hogged my T61 during the trip as I was able to connect the wireless spots while his laptop (Fujitsu) couldn’t!

My Uncle recently came over and was impressed with the Thinkpad range and asked me to get him one as he wasn’t all that keen on having a Dell or Acer. He told me his requirements are a 15.4” screen with the UltraNav as he can only use the touchpad! So I went back on eBay and found a rarely used R61 with all the requirements checked. I felt lucky and my senses proved right, I won the auction for £250! It was an absolute steal and came equipped with Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia Quadro graphics card and a biometric fingerprint reader! It came and worked like a charm. All in all, we got 4 cracking Thinkpad laptops, some with warranty for £1340 which unbelievably still cost less than a single W500 from the Lenovo UK web shop!

I decided to post some pictures of our Thinkpad collection, all sourced at bargain prices. I hope my experience prove useful reading and encouraged people wanting a Thinkpad but never thought it was affordable to think again as there are plenty of bargains around with its superb build quality and specifications (particularly the R/T61’s).

Plus I had bit of fun with the last three pictures. Only with a Thinkpad you can!

 

Yay! thinkpad card houses hahahah. Nice.

 

I applaud you on obtaining amazing deals and the thinkpad card houses~

 

Hello,

There's nothing I like better than an orgy of thinkpads (hehe), and a good laptop bargain of course.

I got my current Thinkpad T400 for £420 on eBay. Used but in excellent mint condition.

 

Rep for the ThinkPad card house!