How to Buy Cheap Laptops

Laptops can be a very expensive purchase for the family and can eat into the budget in a big way. To get a laptop that will not be outdated within 1 week, one must buy the latest and greatest in order for it to be a wise purchase for a few years to come.

I unfortunately had my laptop stolen around 6 months ago while attending a night out in the city – meaning all my work to date on this site and future articles was gone This made it even more important for me to save money on buying a new laptop as I would technically be paying another $1,5000 – $3000 for something I had already bought!

As a result of hunting around for the best deals on cheap laptops – I decided I would share with everyone how it is that I saved money on buying a laptop and got a top of the line laptop for only $1,100 delivered to my door, brand new!

Laptop Retailers

I decided to shop around at the following online sites, as its almost second nature to know that if you want to save money on buying laptops you don’t buy them in the actual shops as they are a lot more expensive and bargains are few and far.

Site I looked at included:

• JB Hi Fi Online
• Harvey Norman Online
• Laptops.com.au
• Dell.com.au
• Lenovo Laptops Online
• eBay Laptops section
• Greys Online

Cheapest Laptops

I soon discovered that the cheapest laptops I could find were those that were selling brand new on eBay. JB Hi Fi have good deals as well, but they just didn’t tickle that ‘bargain’ feeling I got from some of the listings on eBay.

At first I was prepared to buy from Dell because I knew they had easy to use support and quick service and quite competitive deals, but they too were just a little higher then what I was wanting to spend.

eBay was leading in terms of finding brand new cheap laptops but the problem always remains, is eBay safe for making such a large purchase? My answer is YES. Why? Because if you use PayPal to make payments, you are covered upto $5000 for purchases that go bad.

Laptop Specs I was after

1. Dual Core 2.4GHZ processor
2. 2GB to 4GB RAM
3. 320GB Hard Drive
4. 13.3 inch monitor size. This is quite compact!
5. The price also had to be as close as possible to $1000 to $1500

How did I snag the above for $1,100?

I watched eBay for around 2-3 days, taking note of wholesalers who sold lots of different laptops. I narrowed my searches to things I wanted, eg; 13.3inch screen and minimum processor speeds. Doing this I found a wholesaler couple who sold nothing but HP Laptops on eBay – not refurbished laptops, but brand new laptops.

This is when I spotted the HP Pavilion DV3021TX Laptop 13.3″ 2.4Ghz T8300 – bidding only upto $700 on it. I decided I would get it and waited until the last 15seconds to launch my maximum bid, effectively winning the auction by only $1.00 more then my rival bidder.

How much money did I save?

Dell sold the exact same specs for $2100. This means that I saved $1000 by shopping around for a laptop and not giving in to the major consumers that make it so much easier.

Lesson of the story? Shop around when making big purchases, it can save you a lot of money.

Tell me your tricks on getting a cheap laptop

I would love to learn more ways to find cheap laptops in Australia, so please leave a comment.

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