Solid machine for the price, but not without some caveats. I have to make some inferences since they don’t provide the model number in this listing, but there’s a pretty good review over at Notebookcheck. The biggest takeaways for me are:
- One memory slot is soldered, and depending on the configuration it has either 8 GB or 16 GB soldered. It would be really nice to know what the status is for each of the models for sale here.
- Under load, this machine gets hot. They measured the center of the underside near the hinge at 153 F. If you’re not planning on running this guy into the ground, you’re probably fine, but don’t plan on using it on your lap if you’re going to stress it.
- The processor is a 4-core, 8-thread chip that offers pretty middle-of-the-road performance. It’ll handle most regular workloads just fine, but don’t expect to do any gaming on this, unless you’re talking about games from 10+ years ago or esports titles.
- The battery is good for about 11 hours new doing light duty (e.g. web browsing), but expect to get worse results since it’s a refurb.
All in all, I think this is a solid deal given the price. You should be able to find OEM and aftermarket parts (batteries, chargers, docking stations, replacement keyboards/displays, etc) pretty easily since it’s a business model, so even though it’s refurbished you can probably keep it running for a long time.
@chiasticslide Thank you for the detailed breakdown (and nice Gary Bunda picture btw!) The model # for this one is 20S00032US, we’ll get that added to the listing.
Great info/breakdown! This machine does run hot! I have this as my corporate work machine and I have a USB desk fan constantly blowing on it to keep it cool.