Is computer technology going downhill?

[Sketcher]

What do you guys think of buying a used laptop on Craigslist? I hadn't considered it before, but just now took a look and am pretty amazed at the deals! I've seen ones pretty similar to mine selling for $100.

Or how about this one?
"I have a Surface Pro 3 for sale, specs are as follows:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4300U
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4400
RAM: 8GB
SSD: 256GB
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Comes with everything pictured (Surface Dock, Pen, Touch cover, Tablet)

Asking $200 OBO for it."

Heck, I paid $300 for mine 5 years ago, but this would be a generation better processor, 2GB more RAM, and an SSD twice the size $300 would get me new. Or is this too good to be true? Never know on Craigslist. But I've never bought anything from anyone on CL before. I've only sold stuff.

How's its battery life?

Also, you never really know what has been on that disk. If I were to get it, I would want to replace the disk completely. As in, the previous owner keeps the SSD, and you have a boot USB drive made from the emergency partition from the original, and then you put a new SSD in there. This would logically knock down the price.

 

[Aldebaran]

How's its battery life?

Also, you never really know what has been on that disk. If I were to get it, I would want to replace the disk completely. As in, the previous owner keeps the SSD, and you have a boot USB drive made from the emergency partition from the original, and then you put a new SSD in there. This would logically knock down the price.

But I'd have to buy a separate SSD to put in there, and that would more than make up for whatever savings there might be. Also, aren't laptops made to where they're not easily serviceable anymore? On my old Toshiba, I was able to easily swap the old hard drive that died and replaced it with a new one, but I heard that it's no longer that simple. They're made now so that manufacturers have to do the work.

As for the point that I "never really know what has been on that disk", wouldn't it be sufficient for me to just do a cleanup of whatever isn't related to the OS? I could even use a program such as Recuva to check for "deleted" items and then clean those out. Maybe even use Bleachbit to do a cleaning of the drive's free space.

 

[Sketcher]

But I'd have to buy a separate SSD to put in there, and that would more than make up for whatever savings there might be. Also, aren't laptops made to where they're not easily serviceable anymore? On my old Toshiba, I was able to easily swap the old hard drive that died and replaced it with a new one, but I heard that it's no longer that simple. They're made now so that manufacturers have to do the work.

As for the point that I "never really know what has been on that disk", wouldn't it be sufficient for me to just do a cleanup of whatever isn't related to the OS? I could even use a program such as Recuva to check for "deleted" items and then clean those out. Maybe even use Bleachbit to do a cleaning of the drive's free space.

To stop some malware from resurfacing, I've had to hit a hard drive's free space with a Guttman wipe after deleting it. This was years ago, and you have an SSD which is better at preserving data than a hard drive. SSDs are also sensitive to writes, so the more you write to it, the more you slow it down.

That, and you don't know this person, if they've done anything illegal on it. If they have, you might not want to inherit that data in any way, shape, or form.

With that in mind, you can ask yourself whether what you proposed is sufficient for you.

 

[Aldebaran]

To stop some malware from resurfacing, I've had to hit a hard drive's free space with a Guttman wipe after deleting it. This was years ago, and you have an SSD which is better at preserving data than a hard drive. SSDs are also sensitive to writes, so the more you write to it, the more you slow it down.

That, and you don't know this person, if they've done anything illegal on it. If they have, you might not want to inherit that data in any way, shape, or form.

With that in mind, you can ask yourself whether what you proposed is sufficient for you.

I wasn't aware that SSDs slowed down so much the more it's used. There's a person selling a Surface Pro 3 with a SSD for $200, but that model came out in 2014. It might be much slower by now. I noticed that the Surface Pro 3 was $1300 at that time, so I thought it might be a great deal. But if an SSD also retains data that should have been deleted even more so than an HDD does, you may be right about the risk.