Refurb Latitude E6420 - Good deal?

[appenzell]

Hello all,

I just about pulled the trigger on this but then thought I should really consult the brain trust. Tonight I found the following laptop for $248.xx

Refurbished Dell Latitude E6420
Processor: 1x Core i5 (i5-2520M) 2.50 GHz
Memory: 4 GB
Harddrive: 250 GB
Optical: DVDRW
Video: Nvidia Quadro NVS 4200M
OS: 32-bit Windows Vista Home Basic

Good deal? Bad deal? Seems like a pretty screaming deal to me. Should I even think twice about this, or just buy it?

FYI, laptop would be used mostly for office work, GIS analysis, and maybe some light gaming. I'm currently running with a C2D @ 2.00GHz and a 8600m gt so obviously my standards aren't that high.

Thank you in advance for any feedback.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, the specs arent bad. I have a work laptop with a 2520m, and it is OK for most things.

My reservations are first that it is a refurb. Is there any kind of warranty? I have always been leery of refurbs, particularly on laptops, which are not easy to repair should there be a problem.

Second is the OS. Vista Basic, really??? Seems very strange to have such an outdated, low end OS with fairly modern hardware. I am not even sure Vista basic supports 4gb of ram, and for sure you could not add more because it is 32 bit.

For 250.00, I suppose you dont have much to lose, but for around 400 dollars you could get a brand new i3 or pentium with windows 7 64 bit, 4gb ram, and it would of course have a warranty. You would lose the graphics card and some cpu performance because the i5 has hyperthreading and the low end new laptops dont. Personally, if you can come up with the funds, I would got with a new unit with full Win 7.

 

[JWade]

for the price, its excellent. I had an e6420 before moving to the laienware m14xr2

you got the one with dedicatred video, much better, though mine had the integrated, which wasn't bad at all.

the e6420's latest bios has slic2.1 in it, so if you get a dell windows disk you can upgrade to windows7 and not have to activate it.

it will handle 16gb of ram, I know, I put it in mine.

the case is very sturdy, how sturdy do you ask? well my wife got mad at me one day and picked it up and threw it on the ground. all it did was make a couple cracks in the casing, LCD, motherboard and all components where undamaged, and she slammed it on the ground pretty hard. bought a used base on ebay for like $30 and it was good as new.

even if you had the e6420 with integrated intel video, it will still be night and day compared to the c2d at 2ghz.

 

[appenzell]

Thank you both very much for the responses.

JWade, what is slic2.1? I've never heard of that before.

 

[JWade]

it is what is in the bios that a dell windows 7 disc sees to tell it that it is OEM and doesn't need to be activated. you can usually get a dell windows 7 disk off ebay fairly cheap, update the bios to the latest, then do a fresh install of windows 7 (make sure you down load the drivers first onto a thumb drive). you wont need to activate it.

great machine. mine came with win7pro on it.

 

[holden j caufield]

Hi can you go in the bios and tell me if under virtualization there is a vt-d enable/disable option. Also which site did you go to? I'm seeing core 2 duos for more. Thanks

 

[JWade]

dell financial outlet, they currently have a 30% coupon for laptops over $230. I picked me up a M4400 (c2d t9900) for $165.xx. was very tempted to get another e6420 though.

 

[holden j caufield]

you should pull the trigger, I only found e6410 around that price range. And the difference e6410 is pretty slow for me.

 

[JWade]

they currently have a vostro with an i5 and dedicated video, after coupon for just a tad over $300. the e5410 with an I-5 for just over $200