Dell Latitude 7280 12.5" Laptop


Dell Latitude 7280 12.5" Laptop

While these are nice recert business grade laptops, especially with i5 and i7 cpus (even if 6th gen with 12th gen being current)… those low rez (not full HD) desplays are a no-go, especially at $330 and $380.

I’ve gone through several Dell refurbs and have had really bad luck. They all died after a ridculously short time. Then the last time I found out why.

I opened the box up and low and behold, it was super sloppy inside. Whomever did the refurb really didnt care about the crusted on dirt, causing the fan not to work, as well as some other items like shoddy connections.

Now I only buy new. and direct from the manufacturer.

Also always wondered how we know the refurbers arent putting tracing software in there to get your passwords.

On the corollary, I’ve had pretty good luck with Dell refurbs got both work and personal use, though with one caveat – I’ve bought them from Dell Financial’s own refurbished division (dellrefurbished.com). Being it’s their own leased returns, I figured they would keep the ones in the best condition before reselling off the rest to other companies. They restore the OS to what the computer originally came with, so like several years back, W7 computers were still readily available from them while Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher licensing agreements meant others had to install W8 or W10. As it’s their own lease return, they tend to be “fresh” off-lease and on more than one occasion, the computers received still had time under the original warranty. The caveat is that they’re priced higher and IMHO, a good 40%-50% off sale is a must there.

In recent years, improvements in processor performance have been significant, so that is an aspect to factor in the overall value of a refurb too. On the desktop side, a 10th gen i3-10100 is par with a top-end 7th gen i7-7700k. A new 12th gen i5-12400 surpasses a top-end 9th gen i9-9900k.

(Note that I am not staff. I just volunteer to help out on the forums.)