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This page is about buying old laptops, from places like eBay UK, for use in Africa. It contains some buying advice, based on my experiences so far, in buying and shipping some laptops to various members of Minciu Sodas.
See also: Ricardo (all my pages), and TradingElectronicItems
This page describes buying old, second-hand items from eBay UK. Please read it in conjunction with the page TradingElectronicItems which is about buying new items from ordinary online stores like Ebuyer.com UK.
Uses for this information  As well as getting a laptop for Minciu Sodas members to use, to improve communications betweeen us, the information may be of some use if you want to do it as a spare-time business, building refurbished laptop systems for students, schools, individuals, businesses, etc.
What is eBay? It's a website where thousands of individual people and small businesses can pay to display an advert and sell all sorts of items (computers, phones, cables, spare-parts, books, cars, etc). It isn't like a single company, selling a range of products. It's similar to millions of Newspaper 'Miscellaneous Sales' adverts, but with a full-page for each item, and a buying link.
eBay allows people to sell items in 2 ways :-
1. By auction - People place bids for items and compete against each other to buy the item. The item is advertised for up to 10 days, then the person who placed the highest bid wins the item, pays for it, and the seller sends it to them. The seller can specify a 'Reserve price', so the item is only sold if people bid more than this reserve-price.
2. Buy it now (fixed price) - Some sellers choose to advertise their item with a 'Buy it now' option. People can click the 'Buy it now' button and buy the item immediately, just like an online shop or store.
The eBay company that owns the website is based in the USA, but has separate websites for people in the USA, UK, France, Germany, etc. See the list of countries at the bottom of the Home Page. There are no eBay websites for Africa at the moment. eBay just operates the site and makes money from the 'commissions' paid by the seller/advertiser, an advert-fee plus a small percentage of the sale-price. The buyer doesn't pay any fees.
 http://www.ebay.co.uk/
For more information, see the Help pages at...
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/index.html
and the Wikipedia eBay article at...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay
Buyers usually pay via the Paypal electronic payment system, linked to their bank account or debit/credit-card. Paypal is owned and operated by eBay Ltd. It provides a safe way to buy and sell, because it has a compensation scheme, if there are any problems with the money or goods.
https://www.paypal.com/
It's a good idea to only buy items that offer Postal Insurance, so there's no risk of losing money if an item gets lost in the post. If the goods don't turn up after a long time, contact the seller and they can claim on the insurance.
eBay laptop buying guide See http://pages.ebay.co.uk/buy/guides/laptops-notebook-buying-guide/ for a very good article on buying laptops.
Buying old laptops on eBay UK or eBay USA These are my own tips for buying laptops.
If you're interested in buying second-hand laptops from eBay UK http://www.ebay.co.uk/ or eBay USA http://www.ebay.com/, here are some things to look out for.
The main aim is to buy a laptop that has everything included, so you don't need to buy any extra items :-
1. I search for the word 'laptop', in the 'Laptops' catagory', to ignore accessories, etc.
2. On the left, select 'UK only' or 'US/North America' only, and click Show Items to update the results.
3. In 'Buying Options' seledt 'Buy it Now', to see actual selling prices, not auction prices.
4. In the drop-down list above the results, select sort in order of 'Price + Shipping: Highest First'. This puts the expensive items (the actual laptops) at the top of the list and page 1 of the results and avoids you having to look through hundreds of adverts for low-price accessories or broken laptops.
In the results, there are 2 areas, divided by a thick line. Above the line, there are usually 2 or 3 adverts where people have paid an extra advertising fee to display their items prominently. These items aren't neccessarily the cheapest items. Below the thick line on page 1 of the results, and on page 2, 3, 4, etc, are the real results, sorted in order of high-to-low total price (Price + Shipping).
5. There is a column with a heading 'Shipping to USA', where 'USA' is a clickable link. Click 'USA' and a pop-up list of countries is displayed. Select your own country (Tanzania, Kenya, etc) and click save. The column heading changes to 'Shipping to TZA' or whatever.
The results are now sorted high-to-low in order of Total Price (price + shipping to Tanzania).
If you look below the thick line at the proper results, you can go down the list of laptops and the prices get cheaper and cheaper. All the laptops with a shipping-price displayed in pounds/dollars WILL ship to Tanzania (the selected country). You can go down the list until you find the cheapest laptop that still shows a shipping price. It is just above the laptops that have a shipping price 'Not Specified', that WILL NOT ship to Tanzania (probably just ships locally to the USA or UK, the same country as the seller).
For people in Africa who are buying laptops directly, this is the method I use to quickly find the cheapest laptop that WILL ship directly to africa.
6. I usually set an upper-limit on price of £125, in the 'To' box on the left. Set whatever you like plus a bit higher. It's just to avoid looking through hundreds of adverts for more-expensive laptops.
7. I try setting the RAM option to 'Minimum 256MB', but sellers often don't fill it in accurately, so it can cause some perfectly good laptops not to be displayed. Try it with and without this option.
8. You can also select other features you want, such as Hard Disk size, but again, some sellers may not have entered all the details when they posted the advert. Setting a limit can cause some perfectly good laptops not to be displayed, so try displaying results with and without a limit on the hard disk size.
The features you need to look out for are :-
1. At least 128MB RAM, preferably 512MB, to run Windows XP.
2. A good size screen, say 14 inch or better, but the HP Compaq Evo N400C is still quite good, with a 12 inch screen.
3. Hard disk of at least 20GB, ideally 30 or 40GB or more.
4. CD ROM Drive. Is it built in, for installing programs, or do you need to plug in a USB CD ROM Drive?
It's much easier to erase hard drives and install new operating systems if the laptop has a built in IDE-interface CD Drive. In contrast, external USB drives can disappear when the old operating system is deleted, leaving no CD Drive to install the new Operating System.
Some laptops are sold with a 'docking station' with an IDE-interface CD Drive, which is good for installing Operating Systems. You only need one docking station per model, just to get the OS installed. For example, I had one docking station for all HP Compaq Evo N400C laptops that I bought. I've now sent it to KenOwino, to use with his N400C.
5. Procesor 500MHz or better. It doesn't need to be super-fast for internet access, but it may need to be fairly fast for displaying YouTube videos, or some games, etc.
6. Does the laptop have at least 1 USB Port? Some very old laptops don't have any, because USB only came in about 1998. Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) was the first version of windows to support USB.
Newer laptops have faster USB 2.0 Ports. Older laptops have slower USB 1.1 Ports, but you can always plug in a PCMCIA Card with 2 or 4 fast USB 2.0 Ports.
6. Is the postage very expensive (a rip-off)? From eBay USA to Tanzania or Kenya, $50 is about right.
7. Does the advertiser offer Postal Insurance? If so, make sure you choose to add postal insurance during checkout, for a few extra dollars. I recommend NEVER buying laptops or other expensive items without postal insurance.
8. Does the advert list any functional faults, damage/cracks to the case, or missing/faulty keys on the keyboard.
9. Does the laptop have any good free extra features, such a free mains adapter + lead, WiFi adapter, etc.
10. Is the Keyboard a UK or US English keyboard? Occasionally, you see adverts for laptops with non-English keyboards, such as French/Belgian. Avoid those, of course.
11. Check the sellers live in the USA/UK and their 'feedback rating' and history are good, and believable, not an obvious fake-history only going back a few weeks. Sometimes a scammer joins ebay for a very short time (just a few weeks), advertises items, takes money by Paypal, but doesn't deliver the goods. Then they disappear with the money, and you have all the work of applying to the paypal compensation scheme to get your money back. So avoid sellers that only joined ebay less than 1 year ago.
For a good, genuine seller, on the right, in the seller's profile box, it should say 'Member in USA since 2007', for example.
12. Be careful - Some adverts say they will add 17.5% UK VAT or US Sales Tax to the Buy it now price. Most adverts are okay. The advert includes VAT or Sales Tax in the price, or they are a very small business that doesn't have to pay VAT, or the advert says 'US Sales Tax will only be charged to buyers who are residents of the USA'.
13. I don't bother with auction-style adverts, but you may want to give them a go, to get an occassional bargain. If you are patient, you only have to get lucky once, to get a cheap laptop from ebay auctions. Most of the time, there are a lot of bids from other people in the last few minutes, and you fail to win the item. I find auctions just waste my time.
14. Try to find a laptop that is very light-weight, such as the HP Compaq N400C, to reduce shipping costs. You can check the weight in the full specification for that model of laptop on the manufacturer's website. You may need to download and read the PDF manual for the particular model number. HP bought Compaq a few years ago, so specifications for Compaq laptops are now on the HP website http://www.hp.com/
UK Royal Mail parcels can ship things under 2KG for £10 per KG, or £1 per 100g, by airmail. Parcels over 2KG have to go by Parcelforce airmail for £20 per KG, or £2 per 100g. Because items over 2KG are so expensive, I try to buy laptops under 2KG.
For people buying laptops from eBay USA, the weight is less important than the UK. Firstly, the US Postal Service (USPTO) is cheaper per KG than the UK Postal Services. Secondly, there is no difference in the cost-per-kilogram above or below 2KG.
If you need to buy any extra items to go with a donated laptop, consider weight and shipping costs and whether this makes it cheaper to send cash, to buy minor items like a mouse locally, in Africa.
Think about whether the user needs any extra items, for these reasons...
a) To bring the laptop up to a useable specification:
1. Most laptops don't come with a mains AC power-supply/adapter or the plug-in mains lead for the adapter. You may need to buy an adapter and a mains lead on eBay by searching for '<Model number> adapter' or 'ac <model number>'. Sometimes, they are £20 for the adapter + £1 for the mains-lead, bought together from one seller with one lot of postage, or as 2 seperate purchases.
2. Most laptops don't come with any manuals or setup CDs/programs for things like power-management, to extend the battery run-time. You need to download them from the laptop manufacturers website (Dell, Toshiba, etc), support and downloads section. Also, go into Control Panel, Power Options, and set the 'Power Scheme' to portable/laptop.
3. This is only if you want to use the laptop out-and-about. Most second-hand laptops come with batteries that are so old they don't hold their charge for very long. A new one on eBay can cost from £20 or £30. If you run it from the mains supply all the time, then a new battery isn't needed.
4. If you need to buy a copy of Windows XP, then eBuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/ has the OEM edition for systems builders for £51.20. It's cheaper than the standard retail boxed version, but you can only activate (register) it on one laptop. The disadvantage is that you can't legally uninstall it and activate it on another computer later, if you change computers.
5. If the laptop doesn't have a CD-ROM Drive, to install Windows XP, then it will need an external USB CD-ROM Drive.
b) To make it convenient to use:
1. You may need to add a mouse + mouse mat. Laptops have a mouse-pad or joystick built in, but they can be slow and awkward to use, especially if you want to do photo-editing and need fine control.
c) To enable internet connectivity:
To allow the laptop to connect to the internet, if the user doesn't have a suitable USB Cable for their GPRS phone, they will need a Bluetooth or Infrared adapter to connect to the phone, or a plug-in PC Card GPRS Modem, unlocked so it works on any phone-company network. Check what type/standard of card-interface the laptop has, in the PDF manual from the manufacturer's website (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_card).
UK postage Most people that sell laptops on eBay UK will only sell them to people who live in the UK or Europe. They aren't interested in the complications of shipping laptops outside of Europe, to Africa, with customs forms or the possibility of items being lost or damaged in the post.
So, for laptops from eBay UK, someone who lives in the UK needs to buy the laptops. The seller sends the laptop to them using the ordinary Royal Mail postal service.
http://www.royalmail.com/
Note - Some sellers try to make extra profit by over-charging for the postage and packing, so you have to watch out for this and compare the postage with the Royal Mail price-per-kilo and other eBay items of a similar weight. It's perfectly okay for sellers to charge a little for their time, hard work and boxes, when packaging and posting an item to you.
US Postage For people buying laptops from eBay USA, the postage costs are cheaper than the UK Postal service. A typical laptop, such as the HP Compaq N600C, usually has a shipping-cost of about $50.
After viewing a list of results for Tanzania, Kenya,etc, on the individual advert pages, you may find eBay has gone back to displaying the shipping cost to USA. You can use the drop-down list of countries near the bottom of the advert to select Tanzania/Kenya/etc again, to see the postal charges, notes, insurance cost, etc. When you buy the item using the Buy It Now button, the eBay website doesn't use that drop-down list selection. It's just for information. eBay will always add the postal cost correctly for your country (Tanzania etc, not USA), based on the country information in your eBay account. So don't worry about selecting the country in the advert.
If the seller offers more than 1 shipping service (such as US Postal Service 2-3 weeks and Fedex 5-7 days), please make sure you select the right one during checkout, to get the speed or cost you want. I think the adverts default automatically to the cheapest service, but please check.
Postal Insurance Postal insurance on a laptop from eBay USA, sent to Africa via the US Postal Service, is usually about $7. I recommend only buying laptops and other expensive items that have insurance.
Please remember to add postal insurance during the checkout/payment process, by ticking the box.
Some adverts say 'Insurance is included in the shipping cost', but usually that is just in adverts that use expensive private parcel companies like UBS or Fedex for fast delivery.
Delivery Time When I sent laptops to people in Kenya/Tanzania/Uganda from the UK, I found that it usually took about 3 or 4 weeks to get there. The US Postal Service is a little faster, at 2 to 3 weeks, I think.
Some adverts offer 5 to 7 day fast shipping via Fedex or UBS. Sometimes the shipping cost is okay, not too high, but sometimes it's very expensive for fast shipping.
If you're buying a laptop for someone else, please check they don't mind a 2-4 week delay, to use the low-price US Postal Service.
Shipping laptops to Africa There are 2 fairly cheap services provided by the post-office; Royal Mail small-packet service for parcels less than 2KG and less than 90cm combined height, width and depth, and Parcelforce, for parcels over 2KG.
In case you need to make an insurance claim later, photograph each item in the parcel and keep any reciepts or proof-of-purchase.
Remove the laptop battery and wrap it seperately in plastic, secured with parcel-tape, so it's electrically insulated. This reduces any risk of a laptop battery fire. Wrap everything in several inches (75mm or 100mm) of bubble-wrap, to prevent damage from shock or vibration in transit.
Include a piece of paper inside the parcel, for customs to check, with to/from names and addresses, a contents list and the value of each item. If it's a gift, then before the contents list, state 'Contents, a gift of...etc'.
Seal all edges.
Add To and From address labels, with contact phone numbers.
Add an appropriate customs sticker. For Royal Maill small-packets less than 2KG, add a CN22 sticker for small-packets less than £270 in value, or a CN23 sticker for small-packets over £270 in value. For Parcelforce, over 2KG, ask the post-office for a customs declaration form, fill it in and the post office will complete some details and attach it to the parcel.
Check any insurance-cover is adequate and buy more cover, if you want.
Shipping Prices from the UK
Royal Mail surface mail (cheaper than airmail, but up to 12 weeks, 2KG max)...
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?mediaId=400393&catId=400037
Royal Mail airmail (for items up to 2KG, 5 days delivery)...
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=400036&mediaId=53800712
Parcelforce (more expensive service, for heavier items over 2KG)...
http://www.parcelforce.com/
Downloadable pricelist (Excel .XLS file, zipped)...
http://www.parcelforce.com/portal/pw/content1?mediaId=25900684&catId=25900681
In March 2008, the prices are approximately...
- Royal Mail Surface Mail (12 weeks, max 2KG) = £5 per Kilo ($10).
- Royal Mail Airmail (5 days, max 2KG) = £10 per Kilo ($20).
- Parcelforce airmail (5 days) = £20 per Kilo ($40).
Laptop Spare Parts and Upgrades sold on eBay If you need to fix any minor faults or do some upgrades, there are all sorts of spares for sale on eBay. For instance, you can buy a 240V AC adapter and mains lead ($40 + shipping), a new battery ($40 + Shipping), replacement plastic covers (for broken parts of the case), a complete new keyboard, etc.
If a single key is broken/faded/missing, you can buy a single replacement key for a few pounds/dollars. On a Dell laptop, I found a new key too difficult to fit and I had to buy a complete keyboard.
Cheap Laptops with Faulty Screens + TV as a monitor This may be good for students or anyone that wants a cheap
substitute for a Desktop PC system. The whole system isn't portable,
but it could be a cheap system to use in one place, such as a student-bedroom.
While browsing around eBay UK http://www.ebay.co.uk/ , one thing I noticed is that there's a lot of very cheap old laptops sold 'for spares and repairs only'. Each advert describes what works and doesn't work.
Some of these laptops work fine as a computer, but are very cheap because they have a broken LCD screen. A replacement LCD screen is usually too expensive to fix. However, some laptops, such as the HP Compaq N400C or similar models, have 1 or 2 other useful output connectors...
1. An external VGA connector, so you could plug in a computer-monitor. I think you can buy a 15 inch CRT monitor from a refurbisher in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda etc for about 30 USD.
2. Some laptops also have a 'TV-Out' connector, so the graphic card can display it's output on a TV (good if you want a bigger display). Some people may have a TV already, so there's no extra cost, or you may be able to buy an old TV quite cheaply.
The output signal from the laptop TV-Out connector is an S-Video (composite video) signal. Ideally, you need a TV with an S-Video input socket, not just an ordinary UHF radio-frequency antenna/aerial socket. S-Video gives a clearer, sharper picture than a UHF input. Some TVs have a SCART socket instead, that also gives a clear picture, you just need an S-Video to SCART lead.
If you only have a fairly old TV with a UHF Antenna/Aerial socket, then there are still several options you can use :-
1. Buy a small 'TV Modulator' box, to convert the S-Video to UHF.
2. Use an old VCR as a modulator, to convert the S-Video to UHF. You ignore the video-tape functions and just use it to change the signal format. An old VCR with a broken video-tape mechanism may still work as a Modulator Box, and be very cheap or even given away free.
Some laptops have an option to display more pixels (higher resolution) on an external monitor or TV, such as 1280 x 1204 pixels, instead of the Laptop LCD's 1024 x 768.
I tried the N400C laptop that I sent to Kims on a big TV and it worked fine. That was just S-Video to S-Video. The lead/cable is sometimes called an RCA or Phono lead. It may say on the packet that it's for TVs, Video Cameras and VCRs. Look at the connectors carefully to make sure they are the right type, not an Audio Phono lead.
Minimum Hardware Specification for running Windows XP Wikipedia says that Windows XP requires 64MB RAM to run (for basic web browsing etc), and a 233MHz Processor, but Microsoft recommends at least 128MB RAM and 300MHz processor to run a full range of applications. I agree with that. When I buy old laptops from eBay, I always look at the 'maximum RAM' specification on the manufacturers support site, and make sure the particular model can be upgraded to at least 128MB RAM, or is already fitted with 128MB RAM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP
It's usually most cost-effective/profitable to pick a laptop on eBay that already has 128MB RAM, rather than buying more RAM seperately.
Expect to pay about $150 USD or £100 GBP for a laptop good enough to run XP, with 128MB RAM and 300MHz+ processor with an AC Adapter, including the cost of buying a new laptop battery seperately (most laptops come with an old worn-out battery that only holds it's charge for a short time).
This article below is about an experiment to see how low spec the computer can be to still run Windows XP. The result was surprising. Although the Windows XP installationn program demands that the computer has 64MB at the time XP is installed on the hard drive, after that, it can run on a computer with a lot less RAM, right down to 20MB. So you could put the hard drive from a laptop into another laptop or a PC (using an 3.5inch IDE to 2.5inch IDE adapter) with 64MB+ RAM, install XP, then fit the hard drive back into the original laptop, with only 20MB RAM.
http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm
Often, nobody wants old laptops on eBay that have a 'maximum RAM' of only 64MB or 48MB (16MB fitted + 32MB upgrade), so they are very cheap, perhaps only $50 + shipping. For people like students, that need a very cheap laptop, these could be good laptops to buy on eBay and sell to them. Windows XP could be installed on the hard drive using another computer, or the owner could make-do with an earlier version of Windows.
Windows 98 Second Edition is very good. It looks a lot like XP, with a Start button and menu, plug-and-play to auto-detect and install new hardware, etc. Windows 2000 is good too. Avoid the terrible, bug-riddled Windows ME (Millenium Edition).
Minimum Hardware Specification for running Windows 98
Windows 98 requires...
- 486DX-2/66 MHz or higher processor (Pentium processor recommended)
- 16MB of RAM (24MB recommended, it's possible to run on 8MB machines with /im option used during the installation process)
- At least 500 MB of space available on HDD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98
Minimum Hardware Specification for running Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is also referred to as WIN2K.
Windows 2000 Professional (for Desktops/Laptops) requires...
- Pentium processor of 133 MHz or greater.
- 32 MB of RAM
- 650 MB of hard drive space
- CD-ROM drive
(recommended: Pentium II, 128 MB of RAM, 2 GB of hard drive space, and CD-ROM drive).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2000
eBay lesson - Buying Laptops and Batteries
This is a copy of my email called "eBay lesson - Ken, I've started adding some items to your eBay Watch List", that I sent to the eBay traders mailing list. Ricardo May 29, 2009 10:04 CET
Hi Ken (Chelimo)
I've started adding some items to your eBay Watch List. Each advert lasts for a certain time, such as 7, 10 days or a few weeks. When the adverts are close (1 or 2 days) to their end-time, you may recieve some emails from eBay, saying things like "Item xxxxxxxxx N600C laptop is nearing it's end - Don't forget to bid, if you want to". You can ignore these emails and even delete the emails if you want to.
At the moment, I'm just making a start with searching for good laptops that students can probably afford.
So far, I've added 1 laptop, an HP Compaq N600C, the same as Tom Ochuka's, and a N600C laptop battery. This isn't the perfect laptop, as it only has a small 20GB Hard Drive. It's best to choose a laptop with at least 30GB, and preferably 40GB.
Laptops need at least 128MB RAM to run Windows XP, 256MB is better, and ideally they need 512MB to avoid a lot of swaps of 'virtual memory' data from RAM to/from Hard Drive. Constant hard drive activity runs the battery down.
Most types of Linux need 256MB minimum, such as Ubuntu.
I'm just using this laptop as an example price. Later I'll search for similar laptops that have a better balance of price / features.
Modern laptops may come with a 160GB or 250GB Hard Drive, but we are trying to find laptops that students can afford, not top-spec laptops, so 30GB or 40GB would be okay.
Windows XP uses 1.5GB hard disk space at installation. Service packs may add a little. You can check Micrsoft etc websites or Wikipedia pages about MS Office, OpenOffice, etc, to see how much hard disk space each application is going to fill up.
Some people sell laptops without a hard drive, so you can buy a hard drive seperately, of whatever size you want. There are 2 standards for hard drives; the modern SATA (serial interface) hard drive, and the older ATA (also called IDE) parallel interface hard drive. Most old laptops need an IDE/ATA drive.
[Later addition - You can find out what type of hard drive the laptop needs in 2 ways...
1. Search for some ebay adverts for 'N600C hard drive' and see if they are IDA/ATA or SATA drives.
2. Go to the HP (laptop manufacturer's) website, support section, search for the model such as N600C, then download the PDF Mainteance and Service Guide.]
Hard drives also need a mounting frame (perhaps called a mounting bracket or mounting kit). This is a plug to plug into the laptop and 2 metal side frames that screw onto the drive. Check the laptop advert includes this, or buy the mounting kit seperately.
The N600C advert is interesting. The advert says 'Quantity: 2 available'. Often (not always) you can save on shipping costs by buying 2 laptops from the same advert. This advert is a good example. There are 2 shipping options, with different speed and cost.
If you go down near the end of the advert and select Country: Kenya from the list of countries they ship to, and click the Update button, it displays the shipping options and prices.
For a start, the quantity is set to 1 and the terms and prices for the 2 options are :-
Shipping and Handling To Service Insurance
US $94.25 Kenya USPS Express Mail InternationalTM
Estimated delivery Varies for items shipped from an international location
Seller ships within 1 day after receiving cleared payment Included in S&H
US $56.95 Kenya USPS Priority Mail International Flat Rate BoxTM
Estimated delivery Varies for items shipped from an international location
Seller ships within 1 day after receiving cleared payment Included in S&H
We can ignore the too-expensive $94.25 service.
If you look at the Flat Rate Box, US Postal Service option, you'll see it's $56.95. That's not bad.
However, if you change the Quantity to 2 and click update, you'll see that although the fast service goes up to $157.75, the cheaper, slower $56.95 price doesn't change for 2 laptops. In other words, the shipping cost for each laptop is half $56.95, equal to $28.48 each. That's very cheap.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=260394498897
Most laptop adverts say "We don't guarantee the battery has a very long run time". Sellers don't want to spend hours testing the old batteries in every old laptop. This advert is unusual, it says clearly that 'Laptop has bad battery'. So, you need to buy one from a seperate advert, for about $40 including shipping.
See the N600C battery I added to your watch list, or use this link...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=280350483579
It's $33.90 + $7.58 shipping to kenya = $41.48 total.
That's the cheapest battery i found from North American ebay sellers. I avoid chinese or hong-kong registered ebay members, due to past problems, how difficult it would be to resolve problems with a chinese/hong-kong seller, and other people's bad experiences.
However, although the seller is US-registered, it says the battery will be delivered from Hong Kong to non-US buyers. Many laptop battery adverts are like this.
"American buyer items shipped from New York, USA (3-7 days).
Other country items are ship from Hong Kong ,Please allow 8-14 days for your items to arrive.Shipping to Euro, Asia, Africa and so on."
A genuine HP lithium-ion laptop battery, running for 3.5 hours, might cost $100, far too expensive. If you buy cheaper $40 batteries, they seem to work, but perhaps the run-time may be shorter, at maybe 2 hours. This needs confirming. The writing on the outside of many batteries from hong kong looks a bit dodgy, with mis-spelt english words.
Anyway, these cheaper $40 batteries probably give the best balance of price / run-time for your student customers.
If some of your students don't mind waiting a long time, or you are buying a stock of laptops using your own money, you might save money by buying laptops that include a non-guaranteed battery, then testing the battery run-time yourself. If it's 2 hours+, then use that battery (no extra cost). If not, then buy a new battery. That means another 8-10 day delay to buy a battery, or you could stick to one model of laptop, such as N600C, and hold a stock of new batteries, to reduce delays.
Note - It's often cheaper on shipping cost if you buy about 3 batteries from one advert.
No doubt we'll all build up some useful knowledge and experience over the next year, as you buy more laptops. I'm just passing on what I've found out so far from the eBay laptops I bought.
Buyers Guides
On eBay, many users and eBay Ltd themselves publish buyers guide pages, such as 'buying laptops', 'buying laptop batteries', etc, for all types of items. It's worthwhile reading these, to get tips on what good features to look for, which features you don't need, ways to spot fake items, which types of seller to avoid (a particular country), scams, etc.
You can find the guides via the Help link, top right, or when you look at an advert for a laptop, battery, etc, ebay intelligently displays links on the left of the advert page to the appropriate buyers guide, if there is one.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/search/reviewsguides.html
Avoiding Buying Problems
As I mentioned in chats, for the first 6 months of using eBay, it's best if you get me to check all adverts just before you are about to buy something. I can check you are allowed to buy that item for shipping to your country, whether the seller looks like a scammer, any items missing from a laptop that you would have to buy at extra cost, etc. That way, you avoid any problems in advance of the purchase, which is far better than running into a problem and having to sort it out with the seller.
http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?BuyingOldLaptops
I've CC copied this to all the traders. It may interest Kims, and any other traders that start with eBay in future. I'll add it to Worknets when I get time.
Bye for now.
Ricardo
Ricardo May 29, 2009 10:04 CET
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:09:15 UTC FredKayiwa: Thank Ricardo for this Nice Information
Hope you Include the links for extra Items like Digital Cameras and Phones
Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:24:52 UTC Dan Otedo: Thanks Ricardo. This is fantastic. What more, am getting it by M-phone.
I will seriously consider this information on my next visit to kisumu .
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