Thinkpad T400 for $299

Found it at the pawn shop.

Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 CPU
160 GB HD 7200 rpm
ATI Radeon 3400 series graphics card
14.1" 1440 x 900 LED screen
Windows 7 Ultimate
MS Office 2007

The pawn shop thought it only had a 40 GB HD because it was partitioned.

Charger cord will be to be replaced.

Good deal?

 

Sounds like a decent deal, yes. I sold mine for $350 to a friend a few weeks ago, but that was more of a 'buddy discount' than anything else.

 

Maybe check if it is still in warranty? Also be wary of stuff sold at pawn shops..

 

Looks nice to me.

 

Sounds like a good deal, but as mentioned above be careful of stuff bought at pawn shops, they sometimes can be questionable acquired.

The reason most pawn shops dont put products on ebay is that they dont want to risk people verifying serial numbers, it is better for them to act ignorant...

This could be a great little laptop, but even with warranty if this stolen. lenovo may not do the service. (this is common with Valentine ONE radars)

A receipt from the pawn shop doesn't prove you have the legal ownership, if it was stolen then the original owner still has right to it... (would be hard for them to get it from you and this is an extreme case)

 

I realize the risk with merchandise from pawn shops.

Local police make the rounds with the pawn shops all the time, checking the inventory's serial numbers.

It is still under warranty, which expires March 19, 2012.

I checked the T400 out after bringing it home. Overall, it's in good shape, with not even much cosmetic blemish.

I had to clean out the prior owner's music and photos, though. A lot of limewire and torrent downloads. There were a lot of viruses on it.

I upgraded the anti-virus, ran CCleaner and Malwarebytes.

Runs fine now. I like the display. It is even brighter than my HP 2009m LCD monitor.

 

@princealyy

If the laptop is stolen and the owner finds out the pawn shop had it, they will track it whomever bought it.
All the owner would need to do is have a police report of the loss or theft and to verify the serial number and cops could and probably will confiscate it and return it to the owner.
The person whom bought it from the pawn store however should get his money back from the pawn store since the verbal contract was for the ownership laptop not for a laptop who's ownership was never the pawn shops to sell.

 

If everything is legit then it looks like you got a great deal in the end (well done!). Normally under such circumstances I would do a full clean reformat as you can never tell the history of the previous owner (even uninstalling programs, removing old files may not be enough). Considering P2P programs were used I would also check the mileage of the hard drive as a precaution.

 

Very legit deal.. I'd even buy it from you for more!

 

Thats a KILLER deal! the t400 is an amazing machine and imho worth more then $300.

 

Thanks. Yeah I think it helps that Thinkpads are rather dowdy-looking with their squarish lines and all-black housing. On the shelf, the T400 was easily outdone looks-wise by lesser laptops with glossy screens, colorful swirls, and shiny cases. That, and a lot of pawn shop employees don't know much about computers.

The pawn shop people were actually surprise I went for the "ugly" laptop, even at $299.

I also found a Thinkpad X200 Tablet at another pawn shop for $399. Great condition. I put that on layaway. I'm looking forward to picking that up as well.

 

Oh, here is a shot of the T400, taken about 5 minutes ago at Starbucks.

I read some reviewers complain the T400 keyboard is flexier than the older IBM Thinkpads, and while that may be true, I really don't have a problem with it. It's not that noticeable, unless I stand on it or something.

 

That's an awesome deal.

If it had a lot of viruses, though, I think a clean install of an OS would be the best thing to do; or completely replace the hard drive with, oh I don't know, an SSD or a clean hard drive or something.

I'd be too paranoid of any lingering viruses.

 

For us thinkpad lovers they shine brighter then the others. But Ill agree to the average consumer thinkpads are shadowed by all the shiny laptops. If only they knew they could get a much tougher, cooler running same internal hardware for the same price...

Looking good!

 

Good point. I may upgrade the HD to SSD when funds allow. Right now it's just for web surfing.

 

A T400 for $299 and an X200 Tablet for $399.

Great deals for you!

 

Thanks. Two great Thinkpads for $700 plus tax.

 

The T400 is one powerful 14 inch notebook. I can play games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 with decent frame rates and the notebook never gets hot.

 

That looks EXACTLY like my laptop. Yeah...some of the keyboards in the T400 were of the flex-type because of the perforated backplates. But you can buy a replacement keyboard off eBay or even from Lenov/IBM directly. EBay will obviously be cheaper.