Be Excellent To Each Other

Need to estimate the value of this old laptop for someone. I know it is worth very little, but I don't know how very little.

It's an Ergo Preceptor 5, specs are:

Pentium M 1.5 GHz
RAM: 256 MB
30GB HDD
CDRW/DVD and floppy drive
15.1" TFT 1024 x 768 screen
Built in wireless

Edit: Comes with windows XP license too.

£10?

This is about right. It can't even be split up and sold I'm afraid.

More than a tenner, surely...? :/

eBay says you can buy one for £10 - £50. Guess I really am behind the times, or the market is full of new laptops and everybody is replacing their old ones simultaneously. If you were looking to sell, you're not going to get more than £60 for it. A shame.

It's considerably better than my somewhat damaged Compaq that I'm using at the moment. There's nothing laptoppy or netbooky that that machine shouldn't be able to do. It'll play DVDs, movie files, youtube, emulate a SNES or Amiga perfectly. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT.

£20 extra if it has a working battery.

But it is called an Ergo Preceptor! It sounds like a thinking dinosaur! The Ergo Preceptor swooped through the air attacking its prey with a combination of brainwaves and pebbles.

It's only the HHGTTG-esque name that's placing it above £40. That, and I think they look rather smart.

Is it clean? Clean it. Doubles the value.

Basically it's an old one from my Mum's work. They are getting a new one, and I think they are going to give it to me, since I just spent today doing a bunch of heavy lifting for them (not that I wanted to be compensated). I said to my Mum I would see how much it was worth, because if it was worth a lot (ie, worth the hassle of selling it) I wouldn't want it for free

I'm thinking it would fun Ubuntu toy to have.

Also - I guess the reason it's worth very little it because of all the cheap netbooks on the market too.

DVD drive makes it a good DVD player anywhere too.

Edit: It is clean, comes with a case and a bunch of wires

It's not really worth the hassle of selling it. If you want to muck around with it it sounds OK.

Unless you're Super Linux Guy, putting Ubuntu on it will make it just a toy, exactly as you said. You could dual boot it with XP if you want, there's plenty of HD space. Is there any special Ubuntu stuff that you're looking forward to trying on it, or do you just want to have a look?

Selling it would be easy enough, but posting it would be a pain. I wouldn't sell it, because eBay IS CHANGING AND BAD AND BOYCOTT AND WHATEVER. Alas, it's still so convenient, oh what a world.

I would use that laptop as my 'everyday stuff' computer, myself. If you were interested in web development, you could use it as a LAMP server. Does it have wired Ethernet too?

I split my computers into three catorgies:

'Serious work': never connected to the router. Power and space for development and photography. Don't want this computer to get screwed up. I disconnect the serious hard drives if I ever want to use the modern hardware for games.

'Everyday stuff': connected to the router. Decent XP computer for web,
MSN, or standing in for the serious work computer in case of emergency. Smarts a bit if it gets screwed up, but reinstallation is fine. I don't care about modern games, so this would be my gaming computer. As computers get better, the computer in this role will eventually become good enough to play any game that's become cheap enough for a 'skate like myself to buy.

'Toys/Repair': screwed up computers that don't have a use. Stick Linux on one of these (or use a LiveCD) and I'm back on the Internet in a pinch.

Get it and send it to nickachu.

Send it to me and I'll 'valuate' it for you.