Tigerdirect is gone now

supton

supton

Joined
Nov 9, 2008
Messages
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Location
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Doah! I had been looking, needed a laptop for the daughter, put off too long. Maybe I will have to give in and do the SSD upgrade for her, against my best thoughts.

Question though, what is a place to go for laptops and/or parts going forward? I know, I can always hit ebay and Amazon and CL, just wondering if there’s a reputable place for cheapskates. I really have little desire to learn more about computers, I just want to buy something decent (for as little as possible of course) and just use it until it dies. Is Ebay my best bet for refurbs?
 
FWIW, and I do not know what it is like outside of my immediate area, there are a lot of storefronts around here that repair laptops, desktops, phones, etc. and they'll routinely have off-lease corporate machines. These machines; often a ThinkPad W-series, are shy on graphics horsepower and don't often feature a tonne of storage nor fancy-pants features. But they are built like tanks, have more-than-decent processors, enough RAM and are cheap as can be.
I've made a habit for many years now of buying these off-lease machines, which probably spent their commissions in banks, offices or schools, for myself, my family and the friends and neighbours who get advice about this kind of stuff from me.
I am typing this on a ThinkPad W-510 w/ an i7 in it; purchased for $150 long enough ago that I don't remember what year it was. I put a cheap-o SSD and a few more GB of RAM in it and it's been running Debian or Ubuntu for years without any issues at all.
 
Amazon has never been the best place to look for laptops.
I'd rather buy a used off lease laptop than a new $299 flexible flyer.

Microcenter is an awesome brick & mortar, plus online retailer of all things PC.

This would work fine:

www.microcenter.com

Lenovo V15 G2 15.6" Laptop Computer - Black; Intel Core i5 11th Gen 1135G7 2.4GHz Processor; 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM; 1TB - Micro Center

Get it now! Designed for the modern workplace, the Lenovo V15 Gen 2 laptop gets it right. Suited for mobile productivity, it yields great performance in the office or at home.
www.microcenter.com www.microcenter.com
 
Microcenter tends to have the best deals; plus their store is only a 30 min drive for me.

Newegg is your other option but their marketplace is similar to Amazon where things can be shipped/sold by Newegg, or by a third party.

These two should be able to cover 99% of your needs unless specific.

RIP Fry's.
 
Newegg, forgot about them, thanks.

Microcenter too, ok. Two places to shop from. Got it, thanks. [Now for the hard part: selecting then actually buying.]
 
I purchased the Thinkpad that I am using presently from Refurbio.
Lately, they are somewhat hit or miss, but got an excellent price and service from the off lease unit that I bought from them.
 
I third Microcenter, if you are close enough to a brick & mortar store it is worth checking one out in person. They have a good online storefront also.
 
Here's a news story I found on the closing of Tiger Direct.. Same old story.. Someone bought them out, shut them down..

www.pocnetwork.net

TigerDirect.com closes its doors, ending another long-lived name | Poc Network // Tech

TigerDirect had originally been founded in 1987 and was one of the first retailers to rush toward the internet, opening its website in 1996, nearly 10 years later. Specializing in electronics, it competed with the likes of Newegg, CompUSA, Best Buy, Micro Center, and others. Where it established...
www.pocnetwork.net www.pocnetwork.net
 
I used to order from them years ago but then Newegg came to the scene and blew away everyone with their pricing, back then they were very hard to beat. For awhile I didn't fully trust Newegg as I would purchase only certain items from Tiger Direct, mostly GPU's and monitors come to mind. Today Newegg can still be hard to beat but their prices have either increased or everyone else is now meeting theirs, I've found that even Amazon can beat them out fairly regulary.

I literally just upgraded my mom's computer, I've been letting her use an old Mini-PC that I've had lying around, it has Windows 7 but evidently is now out of date for what she needs to use it for, I could've probably upgraded to an SSD along with 10 but honestly it just wasn't worth it, I couldn't find much of anything online about it but seemed like 4gb memory was all it could take which is what I have in there. I ended up looking around on eBay for other computers but found a Lenovo Thinkcentre m73 for literally $67.63 after tax and shipping, it came with 8gb ram, 500gb drive, Windows 10 Pro 64bit and Office. I've since upgraded the CPU, 16gb ram, Samsung 500gb SSD, and the external DVD drive and bracket. It's the tiny version and it mounts to the back of the LCD using the Vesa mounting holes so it doesn't take up anymore space than that of the monitor. The total I have in it is just over $200, everything was purchased off eBay except the SSD and I ordered a Vesa universal mounting kit from Amazon that had a bunch of different screws and spacers since I didn't know really what I needed as none of the brackets I found online even came with those screws so I was basically lost.

I wasn't going to upgrade the CPU but the seller on eBay took notice that I had viewed their item and sent me a reduced offer to purchase it.
 
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