where to get an inexpensive laptop for Vector?

[MarkGrieveson]

Hello.  Seems to be a real challenge to find cheap laptops to install Linux on.  New ones always contain an OS already, and are somewhat pricey because of it.  Searching places like ebay or Craigslist usually results in either finding overpriced stuff or finding cheap worthless garbage -- IE, people who have bought a new one and want to sell their older one still tend to have emotional attachments to the older one, and overestimate its value, or it's so incredibly old that it's worthless and eventually would cost more in the long run to fix up than just buying a new one in the first place.  

Anyway, I'd like to ask you to list some options you've found for buying decent laptops to install Linux on (or to buy preinstalled Linux laptops).  I found some preinstalled ones at thinkpenguin.com, but the cheapest was $500, and they're all 14" or bigger.  Laptop Closeout had some promise for cheap ones.  One that looks promising in Toronto is TorontoPCS, which sells some without an OS, and others set up with WinXP.

Anyway, if anyone else has any ideas as to where inexpensive laptops for Linux can be found, do share.

[MarkGrieveson]

Found another one that seems promising:  http://used-laptops.ca

[retired1af]

Check places like TigerDirect. I just snagged 2 17" ASUS notebooks for under $500 each. The sweet thing about them are they're dual bay notebooks. Keep Winderz on the primary drive and slap a second drive in for Linux. The Burlington store where I snagged these are out, but you may find 'em nearer to Toronto.

Canada Computers also has some decent deals every now and then.

Now is the time to be shopping. After the end of the month, most of the really good deals will disappear.

[overthere]

kijiji would give you an idea of what is available locally although like craigslist the prices seem a little high for low end laptops. but if you keep an eye on it sometimes a reasonable deal can be found.

[sledgehammer]

Mark,

You might take a look at  the thread "lenovo N586 Ideapad questions" which I posted in October.  Ultimately, I think I economized too much (The lenovo was about $370 at Best Buy).   I bought the lenovo as a backup but liked it enough that I just started using it.  Eventually though I went back to my samsung RF 511.  I could not get the lenovo to suspend, nor could I get it to show a second display.  When at the office I like to plug in a larger screen. I could not get the second display to show on the N586, though it shows fine on the RF511.  And suspend works great on the RF 511, provided I remember to cntrl-alt-backspace after unsuspending.

John

[Chris530]

geeks.com

[retired1af]

geeks.com

And the border fees would kill any deal to be had. The OP needs to order from a company within Canada or any decent deal disappears the second the notebook hits the border.

[retired1af]

Newegg has some pretty nice prices on refurbished notebooks.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006741%204803%204016&IsNodeId=1&name=Refurbished&Order=PRICE&Pagesize=20