I recently bought a MacBook Air for my 18 year old, that unit is coming in a week or so. I expect it’ll be a wonderful computer.
My daily driver died on me 2 days ago. It was an older Dell Lattitude that I used for Netflix, Disney +. I’m starting the pleasant task of shopping for a laptop. Right now I’m torn between a MacBook Air and the Lenovo X1 Carbon. Both have similar specs. The X1 is about $400.00 cheaper, but, it only has a one year warranty. Apple Care gives me three years of coverage. I also read that Apple is releasing a new MacBook Pro 14 inch laptops in the Fall. My last option is to go dumpster diving on Ebay.
Fun! 
Do you need that much processing power for what you do? Such a tiny screen?
Sounds like any i5 with a decent screen would be more than adequate. But keep in mind what I’ve learned the hard way. If you buy just what you need instead of what you want, you soon regret it.
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Thanks for the feedback, herbie! I’m also looking at a one year old Lenovo Legion on Ebay listed as in new condition. The seller wants $858 USD. The unit comes with a one year limited warranty. It has a 15.6 inch screen, 16 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD and a 9th generation i7 CPU, and Windows Home.
Fraud detection turned up to 11.
I attempted to buy the above-mentioned laptop at ebay using paypal and the transaction was flagged as fraudulent and declined. I contacted my credit card company to get them to unlock my credit card. I guess they don’t like ebay. Haha.
There’s an outfit in Prince George (legit storefront) called Sarita Computers that specializes in rebuilt/off lease Lenovos. Usually business models, but they may have sources or non advertised specialty models in shop.
I send ppl there all the time because I no longer wish to do laptop screens and soldering I’m too effing old for that. Or at least my eyeballs are…
I’ve never been an eBay fan. When I let go my store the guy insisted I remove my “computer museum” and I took a lot to the dump/recycle shed. According to eBay I could’ve asked THREE BILLION DOLLARS for just the Amigas in it…
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Thanks for the tip, herbie! Up until yesterday I was an ebay fan. My credit card is flagging ebay as a fraudulent enterprise. I will contact the computer company you mentioned and see what they have.
I closed my ebay account. I sent an email to Sarita computers and let them know what type of laptop I’m looking for. Thanks again for the suggestion, herbie!
Further to the get what you WANT thing, I just came back from PG with a new Canon Selphy photo printer. After piddling about for days trying to get an old one to work - even to the point of using an old laptop to run XP… to hell with it!
Not like $150 is gonna break me, that;s not even a month of satellite TV.
Selphys only do postcard size, but the dye sublimation is beautiful and that’s the photo size I grew up with. Still have a print from my first Selphy of my Saturn Vue - that was 2005. Hasn’t faded to rat shit like an inkjet print.
Also I’m loving Amazon Prime at the moment. Not only for TV but I can order $10, $20 items and they ship free really fast. Got the Ice Tower Cooler for my raspberry pi today, wasn’t promised until Thursday. Just don’t like their Buy It Again pestering - that SSD I just got for $41 only $89.99 today! No thanks - I’ll take a different model for $39
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I didn’t hear back from Sarita Computers so I just bought a used 2020 Lenovo laptop from Amazon with decent specs: A 2.9 GHz Ryzen CPU, 16 GB RAM, and a 512 GB SSD, and Windows Home.
Nice! Should be a wee bit faster than the old one, eh?
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Yep, I’m looking forward to taking it for a spin.
cpubenchmark is 50% higher than my Ryzen 3600 and I’m still blown away at how fast that is
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I’ll be curious to see how the Ryzen 7 CPU performs. I’ve always used Intel CPUs.
Booting up my new-to-me Lenovo Legion. Liking it so far. 
Looks like I’m good to go for Windows 11.
But just heard Windows 11 will not let you setup without a Microsoft Account unless you go with Pro version. No “I have no Internet” or local account option.
If you setup with Microsoft I dunno if there’s still a local account option to setup and delete the other…
your system looking good!
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Yes you’re right! I will have to use my Microsoft account to upgrade in place to Windows 11 or do a clean install as I am running Windows 10 Home. Thanks! I’m happy with the unit so far, it’s excellent.
I created the USB stick for the latest copy of Windows 10 (it has home and pro on it). When I did a clean install on the unit I didn’t have the chance to input my product key for Win 10 Pro, the USB installer found the product key for Home on the the PC and skipped over the product key entry window. So I am stuck with Home for now. The used unit came with a lot of crapware installed on it, so I decided to start fresh. Meh. Maybe I will have better luck with a clean install of 11?!
Odd. It should’ve asked at the start which version of Windows you wanted to install. It would pick up the product key later.
I’ve noticed that when I install 10 Home on refurbed computers and skip the product key it ac tivated anyways. “ACTIVATED WITH DIGITAL LICENSE” appears if you look. As if they no longer give a shit.
I always snap a pic of the Win7 stickers but haven’t had to enter the key for months now.
Working on a repair now where the plastic tab that locks down the heat sink snapped off. So dusty inside, no one’s ever opened that case. Never seen that happen before so I’m building it up with epoxy and zap strap… they gave me the box once they knew a new mobo/cpu was needed.
I don’t DO experiments like this except for myself out of curiosity. Specially when we only have Ass Hardware and all the utter crap they sell - like epoxy that’s already hard as a rock in the package
I’ve seen this odd occurrence a few times now with the new Windows 10 USB installer, that is, after it boots up and I click on install now it jumps directly to the agreeing to the terms and conditions Window. It doesn’t ask for my product key; it finds the digital key on the machine.