I need a laptop for both work(construction billings) and race car data.

I do not need latest greatest with bunch of crap will never use. Pretty much bare basics. Store some data and keep track of some job stuff. Also need to tune computer on Harley so wife will get off my azz about it not running and not riding since race car came into picture,

Refurbished is fine. No gaming crap or streaming anything other than racing. Like to get economical as possible of coarse.

Any good sites or suggestions on whats junk and avoid?

Tigerdirect.....before the Smartazz comes along...

check out slickdeals.net

Its the first place I check before buying anything electronic.

I usually go local to a computer repair store and buy refurbished business class units. None of the stupid fluff you don't need and better components from the start. You won't regret if you get a solid state hard drive for boot time and speed. It's also never a bad thing loading up on RAM.

Chris,

I have used IBM refurbished ones for the race track and things like you want it for, for years.

This is a good example https://www-store.shop.ibm.com...pecadbusiness/653005

Reed is spot on for refurbished laptops. Amazon has good selection of laptops. I bought a Dell business/commercial E6530 Latitude core i5 with a solid state hard drive $200.00 bucks. Best laptop I ever owned. I use it for Crew Chief and internet on the road. It's very fast. Original price was between 1,500 to 2,000K. Sorry the company I bought it from closed after 20 years in the business.

Been looking on ebay at refurbished units will give amazon a look although hate buying thru them due to owner is liberal a--hole,but then half of internet is owned by liberal a--holes.

Hard to beat a Dell Latitude both in performance and in support. They have support and downloads available for their products long after they go out of production.

You may want to check out the Dell Outlet store. Often times you can get a refurb from them with 2 or 3 years warranty.

We also bought a lot of Dell refurbs through Insight Computers at the School District I worked for.

Personally I would stay away from HP computers due to their lack of long term support for their laptops.

quote:

You may want to check out the Dell Outlet store.

This was a good option for me several years ago (it has XP if that tells you anything). I still have it as my backup unit. It went haywire and Dell sent somebody to my house and he replaced the mother board (used) no charge.

I've had very good luck with units I picked up on Shopgoodwill.com. If you are computer savvy at all, not that difficult to bring them back to life and even hop them up a little.

Can often buy the units very cheap ($50 or less shipped), usually a good idea to throw in an SSD (~$20 for the size you would want/need), maybe some additional ram if necessary (~$20), and sometimes a battery (~$20). Can end up with a decent laptop with a little work for ~$100 total. I'm a PC person, but was curious about the MacBook hype. I'm typing this from my Macbook that I picked up from there that I have about $120 in total.

My home desktop computer is from there (it is a BEAST, and I have less than $200 into it total), and I now have my eyes on a couple of laptops. I've purchased a few laptops over the years that I've brought back to life and used as gifts/donations for friends and people that needed them. I tend to stick to Dell and Lenovo (IBM), as I'm most familiar with those. But have had decent luck with others as well.

I bought through Ebay as well. Some good deals. I have bought mine and a friends there.

Dave