Laptop question

[C(Sea)Bass]

someone at my school is elling this 1.5 year old laptop for $300. Is it worth it? This is what the e-mail says.

I have an HP Pavillion ZE2000 Laptop for sale that is about a year and a half old.  It just had the motherboard and hard drive repaired so you have some fresh parts in it.  I am asking 300 bucks firm.
 
Here are the specs and a link to a review site.
 
Thanks.
 
AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6 GHz, 256KB L2 cache)
512MB DDR SDRAM
60GB 4200RPM HDD
Dual Layer DVD RW drive
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M video card with 128MB shared video memory
Internal Broadcom wireless b/g card
Windows XP Home
15" TFT XGA BrightView screen (1024 x 768 max resolution)
6-cell battery
Ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 PCMCIA card slot, headphone, microphone, 56K modem, Ethernet LAN, S-Video out, VGA out

it is basically what I have now with twice the storage capacity and 0.1ghz faster. And slightly lesser resolution. I was looking for a new laptop to use for storing all my MP3's on and stuff like that, as mine is down to 2.2GB free space.

[Nilsen]

Dunno about the prices over there, but i think you should be able to get a new one for not much more with better specs from Dell etc.

[Gunslinger]

I just saw an add on TV that had a brand new  bad bellybutton HP from $499.

As far as your storage is concerned, you ever consider an external HD?  They are pretty cheap.

[Viking]

Originally posted by C(Sea)Bass
I was looking for a new laptop to use for storing all my MP3's on and stuff like that, as mine is down to 2.2GB free space.

Why don't you just buy a new hard drive for your current laptop? You could get a 250 Gb 2.5" IDE/SATA drive for that kind of money. You could also just buy an external USB drive and get 750 Gb for the same money.

[C(Sea)Bass]

The problem with external storage is they dont work to well when I travel. Its a pain when I am on the bus or train.

[Viking]

Then get the 250 Gb internal drive. It's simple to swap out the old one, and if you're not confident the people at the shop will do it for you in like 5 minutes.

[Tigeress]

Originally posted by C(Sea)Bass
someone at my school is elling this 1.5 year old laptop for $300. Is it worth it? This is what the e-mail says.

I have an HP Pavillion ZE2000 Laptop for sale that is about a year and a half old.  It just had the motherboard and hard drive repaired so you have some fresh parts in it.  I am asking 300 bucks firm.
 
Here are the specs and a link to a review site.
 
Thanks.
 
AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6 GHz, 256KB L2 cache)
512MB DDR SDRAM
60GB 4200RPM HDD
Dual Layer DVD RW drive
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M video card with 128MB shared video memory
Internal Broadcom wireless b/g card
Windows XP Home
15" TFT XGA BrightView screen (1024 x 768 max resolution)
6-cell battery
Ports: 2 USB 2.0, 1 PCMCIA card slot, headphone, microphone, 56K modem, Ethernet LAN, S-Video out, VGA out

it is basically what I have now with twice the storage capacity and 0.1ghz faster. And slightly lesser resolution. I was looking for a new laptop to use for storing all my MP3's on and stuff like that, as mine is down to 2.2GB free space.

The issues are two fold...

1) is it in good working order; is it reliable

2) does it suit your needs; what are you intending to do with it

TIGERESS

[Airscrew]

I would be wary of buy a used laptop from someone, they're just to easy to abuse, and no warrenty.  A refurb maybe.   If your only issue is storage I would do what Viking suggested, just upgrade the HD, then convert your old drive to an external drive just because..

[Tarmac]

Not worth it if the only thing you're really upgrading is the hard drive.  

Like Viking said, get someone to swap in a new hard drive, or grab an external.   I just picked up a 250 GB western digital passport for 150 bucks... it's perfect for laptop use because it uses USB power rather than needing its own plug, and it's tiny.  You can probably get a similar internal HD installed for not much more than that.