Cheap garage laptops

[pfarber]

If you need a cheap but still VERY usable laptop for your garage (music, web searches, digital manuals) there is a GLUT of IBM Lenovo T430's on the market (aka ebay).

We used these at my work (we now have T450s and Surface Pro's) and they are not bad machines once you spend about $60 to upgrade them from stock (ie 8Gb and an SSD)

First, you can buy them for $50 from resellers. Usually they sell for $20-30 and they charge $20-30 for shipping. Most start at $9.99 and go from there. I bought mine for $24.50 BUT it did not have a HDD, HDD caddy or OS. Not a big deal. A new caddy is $6 and 128Gb SSDs are like $50. For an OS you can still get Windows 10 FOR FREE if you are willing to bend the rules. So for $110-$140 you get a pretty good modern laptop and Windows 10. If you like linux the T430's take linux exceptionally well. I run CentOS7 on mine (I dual boot to an external USB SSD) and all the drivers are there.

For a comparison I also bought a refurbished T430 for $180 to run EZDrummer 2. This included 8Gb ram, 180Gb SSD, and a licensed copy of Windows 10 Pro. Looking over ebay Sold listings this setup sells for $200-$240. I just got lucky and found one for less.

So you can piece one together or but a refurbised unit and still be under $200 for a garage laptop that is still very usable and upgrades are cheap.