Lenovo - ThinkPad W530 15.6" Refurbished Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - 180GB Hard Drive - Black

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• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Awesome Machine!! But an OK (kinda) refurb.

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  So I was skeptical about refurbished from Best Buy (had a bad experience with Frys) but I've learned these Thinkpad Lenovos are practically bulletproof and long lasting machines and very easy to work on. You can get an adaptor on ebay or elsewhere and for another HDD or SSD and swap it with the DVD drive installed. There's a simple lock and eject button that slides it out. I may just do that. I got the last one in stock I believe in my region.These are sold out. I found stock and did a store pickup instantly. Unboxed it, there was NO warranty information on the limited 90 day warranty as the website says. The box had "Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher, along with the inspected by Best Buy cellophane tape on it as well. I called Best Buy customer service, and geeksquad customer service, they pretty much don't know anything about the refurbisher or this 90 day limited warranty and I was passed around, and they kept saying to go to the manufacturer of Lenovo, which I freakin' doubt that's true. I call Lenovo, they'll just direct me to go/call Best Buy again or somewhere else to complain. I might purchase the geeksquad plan later on before my 15 days is up after owning this. I suspect though, the refurbisher might be Joy Systems because I seen other reviews of refurbished Lenovo laptops of different models; so I might give them a call and get some information if the warranty is active starting the day I picked this up. However, I don't see the serial #s on the laptop or anything as they certainly were removed/peeled off as surely that's a piece of info they will ask. A good amount of decals were removed like the intel logo sticker. I will have to do a serial # lookup on the command/run prompt which I find tedious sometimes as I'm not that far advanced in programming or debugging. Going into the condition of the laptop, there was a bit of adhesive residue on the top of the right side upper corner. The keyboard has a bunch of decals over the keys, some placed right with precision; one or two put on lopsided. I can't tell if they tried changing up a UK or different language keyboard with the American letters/numbers, or if they were worn out faded. The battery was completely drained 0 percent, which is good. I looked at the battery, doesn't seemed to be an OEM Lenovo brand, but did a battery test and the brand is "LGC" which is a decent suitable brand, believe made in Korea. There's even a date on the battery, being April 2017 so its pretty much new. The 180 GB hard drive, well you'd think that's small for a mechanical drive. It turns out its a Solid State Drive, intel brand. So the startup and shutdown speeds are under 10 seconds. I decided to upgrade the ram, which there are memory slots under the keyboard, so to get to that, you have to unscrew a couple of screws at the bottom. These screws were stripped! I think, or I didn't have the right screwdriver. With some added regret especially with buying all the memory, I decided almost to return it. I went into the store, told them my issue, but they had tried it and got out the screws, with ease. These screws were badly stripped though to the eye. I probably have a cheap precision tool set that strips easily. So, left the store with the laptop and screws in a baggie, a bit embarrassed but oh well. I didn't go through the regret returning this. Whomever had this laptop previously, didn't do a good job taking care of it. You'd think these are owned laptops by professionals working at a Fortune company, I don't know the story behind this one if it was owned by a disgruntled employee. I didn't screw back in the screws so I ordered a hardware set for the same Lenovo off eBay. I plan on also getting a replacement new/refurb keyboard from eBay as well. Overall, the performance of this machine is amazing, with a Quadcore (older generation) i7, and a shared Nvidia graphics card as there's an Nvidia control panel. I'm impressed. I just hope this machine will last me at least 5 years or so up to a decade. I can get a bigger SSD or get a Nimitz second drive caddy and keep the DVD drive as a backup. I may get some skins/decals to make this laptop look new. Anyhow, I think the Grade of this laptop that I got in this condition, was a B- I would say. But at least provide some warranty information with a card # or something. I don't get the deal with removing serial #s completely off of a laptop. I have a Lenovo B570, the serial # is on a decal (I wish they engraved them on all laptops). I'm sure you can get better refurbished units for less off of ebay, Microsoft Authorized or not, and you can always ask the eBay seller questions. Not saying this refurbished purchase from Best Buy was not bad, but not entirely all good either.

  Posted 7 years ago by marleezyv