What to do with old laptops?

[Hulk]

I get rid of old desktops pretty quickly as it's easy to part them out but I'm not sure what to do with my old Compaq Evo n600c PIII and Dell 620m Core2Duo laptops? They both work. The Compaq is so slow it's really only good for web browsing and even that's kind of painful compared to modern standards. The Dell has an SSD in it so it's still pretty usable I guess.

No use selling them as they're virtually worthless. The Dell could be donated. Or I could just keep them as a memorial to old tech.

Just wondering, what do you do with your old laptops?

 

[mikeymikec]

I've got a P3 era laptop that I've offered to a friend whose eldest kid might be just old enough to possibly benefit from having a word processor type computer for homework.

 

[Blain]

Toss them up on ebay or Craigslist and take what you can get.

 

[corkyg]

I give mine to my grandkids. Otherwise, I would give them to charities such as Vietnam Vets, Big Bros/Big Sisters, etc.

 

[Mushkins]

Wipe the drive, reload windows, donate, enjoy the tax deduction for the estimated value.

 

[hoorah]

Craigslist for anything dual core or better.

Selling a single core isn't worth my time, and the value drops so low you're basically just selling the charger (which holds around $10-15 in value). Short answer is keep the charger, chuck the rest.

Hard to give to kids as their tablets and phones are faster.

 

[Muse]

I was in the market for a used laptop, my requirements extremely modest. The app I run on it would work with even a 20 year old version of Windows. I wound up paying $95 to a member here for a Vista Business HP, shipped. It's more power than I need, but at least the OS is still supported, sort of. I couldn't find anything cheaper on CL for a Windows laptop of any kind, no matter how primitive, so when a member offered me the Vista machine I went for it.

 

[RossMAN]

I was in the market for a used laptop, my requirements extremely modest. The app I run on it would work with even a 20 year old version of Windows. I wound up paying $95 to a member here for a Vista Business HP, shipped. It's more power than I need, but at least the OS is still supported, sort of.

Congrats on your budget find, mind if I ask what application you're using?

 

[Muse]

Congrats on your budget find, mind if I ask what application you're using?

It's a database system I created in Foxpro 2.6 for Windows. I adapted it to work in Visual Foxpro, all versions. The FPW 2.6 version would run on a Windows 95 machine, actually probably a Windows 3.1 machine! It would be fast enough for my purposes for what I do with it.

 

[xgsound]

One idea is to set it up for music for elderly people. Music brings back pleasant memories even when it is not audiophile grade. Use whatever OS and player you can setup for big type and auto start. If the speakers stink and you have USB for charging this tiny $14 speaker should suffice. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004R2DLTO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Jim