I noticed there was a gigabyte 280x video card. Gigabyte usually known for motherboards is also pretty good at creating their own versions of AMD and Nvidia video cards with better cooling solutions and some overclock headroom. A 280x is as the author notes, a fairly new, current generation AMD video card. $360, is not a bad price for 280x. They currently go for $100 higher on the current used card market. Just make sure the guy is referring to an AMD 280x and not a really old Nvidia GTX280. Those are two totally different cards. One is current, the other is ancient by video standards.
The other post I looked at was the 2011 Samsung with the i5. It looks like a well sorted laptop at a really good price. It is kind of funny he is selling this in favor of a MacBook Air. Judging by the Mac styling of the Samsung I guess he never got over not ever really owning a genuine Macbook. Performance wise, he isn't going to gain much compared to the Samsung i5 at 2.3Ghz, with 6GB of RAM and he's losing lots of ports. This only thing this laptop needs is an SSD and it is good to go. Also, note that this laptop is running Nvidia OPTIMUS. This means that it doesn't just have your generic built in Intel graphics. It has a dedicated Nvidia card. Without knowing exactly what model of mobile graphics chip it is using, I would say it has a much better gaming capabilities than your run of the mill laptop. I'm starting to think the seller is a girl.
The like new HP. It runs Win7 and includes a free 20" display. If the display is 1920x1080, that would be a nice bonus. However the laptop looks a little rough for being like new and I would never buy a laptop without hardware specs or model number.
For the Dec., 23 posts, I looked at the Apple mac Book Air 13". I'm not a big fan of the Macbook Air, big bezels, low resolution screens, no ports, limited hardware. It is uber thin but hardware wise it is a bit of a dog by modern standards. And it belongs to a closed ecosystem. If it is a current model, it is a dual core i7, not much different from an i5, other than the 2 cores can hyper-thread meaning occasionally they do perform better than a two core. Usually people only get the 4GB of RAM but that is ok, just not great and the screens are low resolution, 1440x900. That is why they can perform better because they don't have as many pixels to push as a full HD laptop (1920x1080 pixels). All that being said, the seller is asking pretty much full price. Despite what they paid for, it is used and the most this could be worth is around $600. People and Mac's. I don't get it sometimes.
Ok, I was drawn to the ad for the "High End Laptop". I'm thinking, Alienware, MSI GTsomething. I guess the poster doesn't really understand the term high end. This poor machine has an i3, not even an i5. High end would be a 4 core i7. It has a measly 4GB of RAM, a standard 500GB harddrive, no dedicated graphics, etc. Basically there nothing high end about this laptop. But, I guess at least he got me to take a look at it. Buyer beware on this one. Don't pay more than $150 - $200, tops.
The 12GB of DDR3 memory for $40. That is a good deal if you are a builder.
I also looked at the Dell Inspiron 530S desktop. It was interesting the seller posted an information dump of a full scan of the computer, using a software called Belarc Advisor. That is a good sign, the seller is tech savvy and honest enough to do this. The only obvious discrepancy I see with this computer is that it is listed as an Intel Core 2 Duo but the scan lists the CPU as an Intel Pentium dual core. The Intel Core2Duo and Intel Pentium are both dual core and depending on what generation pin compatible to the board chipset. However the Core2Duo is the higher performance chip for that generation. I would verify the chip is in face a Core2Duo and probably negotiate over the price, down.
