What to do with old laptops?

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Nightwyrm

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#21702 4-May-2008 16:21

I'm doing a bit of a cleanout at home in preparation for putting our house on the market (optimistic aren't we?), and I've dug out an old Acer Travelmate 506DX laptop that I bought in 2000 (I think). I don't want to throw it away and I'm not sure if there's really much resale value or even a market for something like this. Can anyone advise please?

A couple of points... The battery is dead, the HDD was upgraded to ~10GB, and it runs WinXP if you upgrade the RAM to its max.

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hairy1

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#128423 4-May-2008 16:32

You might be surprised by the response if you put it on trademe for $1 reserve. There is a bit of a trade in old laptops for all sorts of things. People have been using them for LCD photo displays etc. It is better than throwing it in the bin. Recycling electronic stuff in NZ is a bit of a joke. The Ark might take it if you are in Auckland....

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Nightwyrm

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#128424 4-May-2008 16:42

I haven't had much experience with TradeMe and I'd feel a bit guilty/worried about selling it to someone who may have higher expectations - I'm too honest for my own good

. I guess I could always suck it up and have a go.

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hairy1

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#128425 4-May-2008 17:07

Just be completely honest about what you are selling. If it is $1 reserve then people don't have particularly high expectations of what they are buying usually.

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Nightwyrm

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#128430 4-May-2008 17:31

Cool - cheers for that!

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hellonearthisman

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#128456 4-May-2008 19:28

lugh: I haven't had much experience with TradeMe and I'd feel a bit guilty/worried about selling it to someone who may have higher expectations - I'm too honest for my own good . I guess I could always suck it up and have a go.

Trademe, you will get a good price, don't be embarrassed by that, your post here was a good example of the honesty needed for tradme.

Has it got a windows licence on it, because that can be worth something, especially an xp licence.

The HD upgrade is a good point too showing that it can be upgraded by the user if needed.

I would guess you could get from $20 - $60, it does have a power adapter and it goes...

JAMMAN2110

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#128474 4-May-2008 21:18

I recently modded a laptop into a photoframe quite easily.. Looks great and is very funcitonal!
You can even plug any ipod into it and listen to music (No iTunes -> Floola is great) and play DVDs on it.

Your laptop might not be able to do all that.. but if you have nothing else to do with it ;)