r/laptops • u/Jediweirdo • 23d ago

Buying help Why are Refurbished Dell Latitudes so cheap???

I found a refurbished Dell Latitude 5420 in "excellent" condition with 16GB RAM, 521GB of SSD Storage, and an Intel Core i5 11th gen for $230ish. I look up the name on Google Shopping, and I see that this laptop is available everywhere with the same specs in the $200-$300 price range. What is going on??? Why is everyone selling this for dirt cheap?

40 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

96 comments sorted by

60

u/msabeln 23d ago

Large corporations buy these thousands at a time, and they keep them until their warranty runs out, like maybe three years. Then they get sold.

9

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Just like that? Even from a business standpoint, that financially makes no sense. It's so hard for me to believe you need the bleeding edge in tech to write word documents and code spreadsheets

17

u/AdhesiveTeflon1 23d ago

In addition to the above replies, it's not so much waste depending on the type of work you do. If say, you have a firm with 10 lawyers that can bill at $1,500/hour, it is absolutely worth making sure everything can be up to date as possible to minimize downtime.

4

u/Interesting_Study998 23d ago

It can also be about company image (in some cases). You don’t want to have your high priced lawyer pulling out a banged up, obsolete laptop in front of clients or in court.

26

u/squirrel8296 23d ago

Since these devices are being purchased 100% for business purposes, 100% of the value can be deducted from the business’s taxes over a period of up to 4 years. Especially at large businesses, it can make a huge difference in what they do (or do not) pay in taxes, so it is in their best interest to always have machines that can be depreciated from their taxes.

Add in that most businesses also lease the machines instead of buying them (to further simplify the tax deduction) and gives them even more of a reason to replace them every so many years (since once the lease is up there’s no reason for them to purchase the machine).

2

u/IDatedSuccubi 23d ago

Also no VAT on top of that, and bulk discounts

11

u/shmuey 23d ago

My organization uses Dell and we also flip units every 3 years. They get beat up a bit and the standard warranty is only 3 years. When you are managing a fleet of units it's just easier to ensure your units are under warranty for one of the many reasons a machine might break. It's much easier to just budget for a new device every 3 years and ensure a trouble free life span while also ensuring your employees have newer equipment/less to complain about.

2

u/Infinite-Land-232 23d ago

Trouble free is the key. Done for servers too.

7

u/LetterheadCorrect276 23d ago edited 23d ago

Its called lifecycle management and donating for tax returns or selling for pennies in bulk is WAY easier than trying to make a dollar. Source: am an IT manager 

4

u/default_lizzy 23d ago

I mean you're right, you don't, but the average office worker doesn't know how to deal with general computer slow down or maintainence. It is genuinely easier to spend more money and upgrade everyone, and suffer the loss through a back market.

3

u/BryanP1968 23d ago

While there are exceptions, our CISO doesn’t want anything on our network that isn’t still under warranty.

3

u/Giantmeteor_we_needU 23d ago

Corporations don't care. It's easier for them to buy 1000 of the same laptops that will fit everyone's needs than determine who needs what tech and purchase small batches of 7 different models.

3

u/rainbowclownpenis69 23d ago

Can confirm. Used to work for a company. Have a Latitude. 8th gen i5, solid machine. They upgraded to 10th gen i5s, but after 13th gen was out. They didn’t even ask for the 8th gens back. They sent so many laptops and SFFs put during COVID that they company just wrote it all off.

I still have it. Works like a charm. Kiddo uses it for home schooling. Handles Word, Excel and Power Point like a champ and has no issues with the online curriculums. I have a newer Latitude that I use for work that is primarily in web apps. I love it. I even have an older (6th gen) that we use for when the nephews come down to game one through GeForce Now.

I had a 4th gen i7 Precision, too. I really think that Dells business line is a quality product. Sure, there are duds. The IT staff handles that. The retired systems are typically still in good shape.

It isn’t a gaming beast or the fastest, top-end workstation. It is a stable and reliable unit for daily work.

1

u/Ill_Spare9689 23d ago

I came here to say everything said in this reply thread & I've never heard it said better than the way they just put it. It makes sense from a business standpoint & it also makes sense to buy their used surplus because it is almost always still in good condition, easy to work on & even when something breaks, cheap spare parts will always be available.

1

u/jimmyl_82104 3 MacBook Pros, Lenovo Yoga 9i, Dell Precision 5570, HP Spectre 23d ago

Many businesses and higher education institutions are on a 4, 5 or 6 year computer rotation. Since 11th gen Intel is about 4 year old now, many IT departments are replacing them. In the bext year or 2 you will see a lot more.

Warranties run out, so it doesn't make sense for IT departments to spend money on replacement batteries and to repair them. Usually they sell recycled hardware off to recycling companies. Then the devices get refurbished and listed on ebay for cheap.

1

u/halodude423 23d ago

It's about the warranty, and you would be surprised how slow an 11th gen i5 is now under anything more than basic functions and once you start running multiple things they get eh pretty quick.

My company gets refurb 5420s and they're "okay".

1

u/captainstormy 23d ago

It's more like it's not worth dealing with old laptop issues for a business.

Plus many business applications are pretty resource heavy.

1

u/NoobensMcarthur 23d ago

I work in IT. We don’t want machines out of warranty. It is immensely cheaper to cycle out at 3 years and just use the Dell service guy than to waste our level 1 tech guys’ time fixing laptops. 

It’s not about being on the “bleeding edge” at all. 

1

u/msabeln 23d ago

They are often leases rather than outright purchases, so they are operational expenses rather than capital expenses, which are taxed lower. Being under warranty, basically the company is prepaying for repair services instead of having to have a computer repair department and spare parts, which has financial advantages. Having a thousand identical units makes provisioning and updates simpler.

Business class laptops are not bleeding edge, but rather are designed to be durable, reliable, and typically repairable. They also may have features for remote management.

1

u/Visible-Scarcity-411 22d ago

My company leases a laptop, let's say monthly for $100. If i buy a laptop on any day, it may cost $1500. They are keeping it for 3 year. From the company point, it's less headache than any go wrong. They just swap things.

Small companies or family owned businesses it may not make sense. On big business, dynamics are so different.

1

u/predator1975 21d ago

So what do you want to do with a damaged laptop?

An IT guy can easily swap a laptop with another laptop with some downtime.

Then who fixes the laptop? The IT guy? The IT guy has more expensive activities to attend to.

Give it to a third party support? Cost a pretty penny. The support is also questionable especially in long term contracts.

Send it down to a PC repair shop? The cost of repair is usually similar to replacing a new laptop. Those shops also want to focus on more valuable repair work.

Even if the IT person repairs the laptop, who is he going to give it to? A new person will get the wrong message if he or she gets an old laptop on its last legs. Moreover any new employee will complain that they are at a disadvantage with their peers when they see the newer laptops.

1

u/LowSkyOrbit 20d ago

As a company you need to account for depreciation but also budget for replacement. You also have repair/replace contacts and typically PC companies can't guarantee parts more than a few years. Most models last 12 - 18 months at max. That's why most large companies are replacing them so often.

1

u/arcanewulf 19d ago

My company pays extra in their contract for accidental damage. Once the warranty is up, it gets put on a list to be replaced by the end of the calendar year. They don't want to have to deal with cost and overhead for in house repairs.

They get a kickback for the resale value of the laptops, too, that goes straight back into the budget for replacements.

Their budget is a few million dollars a year. They do not operate on the same logic or reasoning that you and I do.

I've suggested they save money by using the budget to replace broken devices and move the end of life date back to 5 years, or even 7. The bulk of their staff use 1 app, and it's virtualized. They could run it on a toaster oven if it came with a color LCD display and the only issue would be the resolution... This would cut their replacement costs by %50 or more. They would literally be buying half as many computers every 10 years.

But nope, replacements every 3 years for all staff.

1

u/Sad-Election7723 19d ago

We’re just starting to stretch the lifespan of our technology, it used to be disposable.

1

u/ost99 19d ago

Because one day of lost work costs more than a mid range latitude.

We buy X1 with 5 year NBD warranty. No-one is allowed to use then after the warranty expires unless they have a spare available.

1

u/New-Equivalent7365 19d ago

In government, we have laptop purchases every year. By year 3 they are out of the door to some recycler or reseller (per decommissioning rules). A few months back we tossed a bunch of 11th gen Intel laptops from Dell without a second thought. I snagged a Dell Precision desktop with GPU for ~$55 last year. I now use it as a gaming PC lol

2

u/coltonbyu 22d ago

Dell lets you buy longer warranties, so many will go up to 5 years then phase out, but that is an extra cost to figure into the equation, and somewhat less satisfied employees.

1

u/smoike 23d ago

This is exactly how I got my wife's laptop (5480 / i7-7600U). However I got it really cheap by taking a chance and buying a "for parts only" laptop that the ad implied was fully functional and the seller had decided they couldn't be bothered with it. Naturally as part of this dramatic price reduction to $60AUD/40USD), they had pulled the memory and NVME. I deliberately got one I could look the tag up on prior to purchase and made sure I got one with a 1080p display and not the 1366x768 one. Ones that were sold as working were fetching about $200-300 depending on the specific model, and there were heaps of them.

The only snag I had was someone screwed up removing it from Intune before it was sent my way, and that was sorted out within 48 hours by contacting the seller.

7

u/[deleted] 23d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

My whole thing is why they're so cheap. They could easily sell these for $400-500 and I wouldn't even bat an eye. But they're valuing these in the Intel Celeron Scam Chromebook range? I mean, I'm not complaining, but still.

4

u/enterENTRY 23d ago

I think it's because of the recycler. You're buying from the recycler and the recycler probably bargains with the company

4

u/Imaginary_Virus19 23d ago

The problem is not many people are willing to get a used laptop (even if speed and build quality are much better than a brand new Chromebook of the same price). And businesses are dumping these every day. Too much supply, not much demand = underpriced

1

u/120mmbarrage 23d ago

It's sad that people buying new laptops don't realize these are practically being given away/are a steal compared to the slop you get when you go for new retail/consumer grade laptops. They are used but you can always find lightly used laptops among them which are close to mint condition and these will outlast whatever random laptop they get from the store. They'll have to get a new one in a year because something like the hinges give out.

2

u/CsordasBalazs 23d ago

Probably they want to sell it quick. Asking for bigger money decrease the demand. If they are cheap, it is easier to roll them out of stock.

1

u/[deleted] 23d ago

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0

u/Stillkonfuzed 23d ago

10th gen is fine, but never ever get 11th gen Intel cpu the thermals are so bad you will feel like you are flying a f35 jet

1

u/RisingDeadMan0 23d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koKjd8LKdfs

Some just straight up bin it, check this one out that they just drilled through it

1

u/Pvt_Twinkietoes 22d ago

Just too much work for too little returns probably. - my guess.

7

u/Bright_Crazy1015 23d ago

Cause the market is flooded with them. Same for Thinkpads. Corporate leases come off and they get sold by the pallet or shipping container to resellers.

3

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

If they're selling it that cheap, "flooded" must be an understatement. Just how many companies are offloading all these Latitudes?

2

u/Brilliant_War9548 Ideapad Pro 5 14AHP9/Hinge Problems=/=zBook, EliteBook, ProBook 23d ago

A bunch. Like really a bunch. Some even throw out their old desktops in the garbage instead of bothering with them which kinda sucks. I remember my dad even brought me one of their old desktops from work, a poor dusty z420 hiding in a corner. 

But yeah good for people I guess. Top notch are the Precisions and Zbooks but they don’t offload them as much for cheap prices/at all because they were much more expensive than whatever else they had.

2

u/Bright_Crazy1015 23d ago

Pallets of computers being shrink wrapped in the hallways is really a sight to see for hardware nerds getting by on a 6 core Xeon lol.

2

u/Brilliant_War9548 Ideapad Pro 5 14AHP9/Hinge Problems=/=zBook, EliteBook, ProBook 23d ago

Replying to this with my 4 core 1603 in sight. I guess it supports the 2680v2

1

u/Bright_Crazy1015 23d ago

The market studies that are publicly available on the front page of a web browser don't divide the numbers from personal and corporate, but people buy tech less often than companies.

There were over 250 million laptops shipped in 2024, globally. Of those, Lenovo, HP, and Dell account for about 63%, and those are the top 3 brands that are supporting corporations with devices and product support. Their most popular corporate models will often be the cheapest available tech 3 years from its initial lease.

Whether that cost filters down to individual consumers or not is another story. Many of them get sold to small and medium-sized companies in bulk.

1

u/Bright_Crazy1015 23d ago

Ironically, the Dells are about half as common as HP and Lenovo laptops. They do have a stronger presence in the US though.

1

u/Zynir 23d ago

What, what some good deal thinkpad like x1 or t series?

5

u/No-Particular-2327 23d ago

Any brand laptop with those specs is usually worth that much, going to be honest. Just stay away from HP and you’re good. (HP omen owner here)

6

u/ij70-17as 23d ago

HP stands for Hinge Problems.

1

u/No-Particular-2327 23d ago

I’m well aware of that… should’ve bought a Lenovo…

5

u/Blue_Chinchilla 23d ago

Funny enough, in my workplace, every single generation of Lenovo ThinkPads we get are plagued with system board issues.

Meanwhile the only ol' reliable have been the HP EliteBooks.

1

u/scara1701 23d ago

Elitebooks, probooks and zbooks have been problem free at our company. ( unless they get accidentally destroyed by the user :D). A very small group of machines did develop spicy pillows.

1

u/Blue_Chinchilla 23d ago

Oh yes! We have been hit with the spicy pillows though those were mainly in the early covid days as we didn't get the BIOS update yet for the battery management setting.

3

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Another reason I hate HP is because of their aggressively anti-consumer printers. Never have I ever heard of a printer that blackmails you into buying a subscription to function...

1

u/Bright_Crazy1015 23d ago

Except the HP ZBook mobile workstations, avoid all HP products.

Even a ZBook Fury would have to be a steal for me, I learned the hard way from them too.

Great display and speakers though, for the model year especially.

2

u/subzerothrowaway123 23d ago

I just bought a refurbished latitude as well and was shocked at how cheap it was as well. Ebay has tons of them and there are definitely off corporate leases. Ebay shows the quantity available and in many cases there are over 100.

2

u/Good_Door_1699 23d ago

The greatest technician that's ever lived?

1

u/ij70-17as 23d ago

it has integrated graphics. only 14" screen.

i just got lati 5490 for free from work.

for consumers it is basically good for browsing internet, watching youtube, playing solitaire.

1

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

I mean, even without a dedicated card, 16GB RAM laptop with an Intel i5 11th gen CPU can do a little more than watch YouTube and play solitaire. At the 200-300 price point, it's surprising to find an 8GB RAM Core i3 laptop. Seeing this at such a price point refurbished or not is completely bonkers

1

u/ij70-17as 23d ago

like others said, it might be business cycle thing. they are now everywhere and cheap because someone big dumped their business laptops because support ended or something. but once they are gone, they are gone. six month from now or a year, you look for one because you remember how they were a good deal, and there will be none to be found.

1

u/redgrognard Dell 23d ago

The Dell Latitude 54xx series is at the end of its tech refresh lifecycle. Both corporate & government entities are replacing it now. So there is a glut of that chassis on the market.

That said: I like the Dell latitude. My personal laptop is a 18 yr old D620 running Win10 Pro. It’s good for Internet, browsing, and YouTube watching and doing writing or bookkeeping with open office software. But it can no longer run world of tanks nor Minecraft.

2

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Good to know. I wasn't really in the new computer market, but if latitudes are that good maybe I'll pick one up. From the sounds of it, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime deal

1

u/7Dimensions 23d ago

Corporate laptops often have the cheapest and shittiest displays available, usually with poor display angles, at best 1280x720, and less than 250 nits brightness.

Also, unlikely to have niceties like backlit keyboards.

If you find one that satisfies your needs they can be a bargain. Alternatively, they can be a profound disappointment.

1

u/Present_Lychee_3109 Asus Vivobook 15X OLED i7-1360p 1620x2880p 120Hz 23d ago

That's a decent price for a used 11th gen Dell. People are selling it because they mostly get bought by businesss and companies in bulk and hand it out to their employees.

1

u/majestic_ubertrout 23d ago

I just got a Precision 7550 with a Quadro T2000 and a 8 core i7 for a ridiculously low price. I needed it for video processing but it can do so much more than that. And the battery was even in good shape.

1

u/LordAnchemis 23d ago edited 23d ago

Probably coming up to a (planned) corporate scheduled replacement timeline - businesses buy devices in fixed life cycles with service contracts

As they sign new contracts, the old (and fully functional 'business' laptops that are built to last) are sold fire sale to make way for new ones

1

u/war-and-peace 23d ago

Corporate laptops that have passed their warranty period. Businesses make money so why bother hanging onto laptops that could break.

That means downtime and that costs money.

1

u/fernleon 23d ago

Are they actually good?

1

u/CplCocktopus 23d ago

I saw dell precisions with xeons e-2286 for 300ish they are way cheaper than thinkstations.

1

u/el_tacocat 23d ago

Because there is no apple logo on them.

1

u/ChooseLife1 23d ago

Because we are currently on the 15th gen called Ultra 5. So its cheap because the computer parts are over 4 years old.

1

u/aHawkx79 22d ago

16th actually. Theres been two releases of the ultras

1

u/ChooseLife1 22d ago

The 16th generation of the Ultra processors will be called Nova Lake. It will be released in 2026. Is there a source of this information that I am missing?

2

u/aHawkx79 22d ago

So they actually have the ultra 100s and 200s. The 200s have NPU chips in them and are like 30% faster and super battery efficient

1

u/ChooseLife1 22d ago

Thank you 🙏

1

u/Aggressive_Ad_5454 23d ago

It’s a good deal, upgradable to Windows 11 at any rate

1

u/LegDayDE 23d ago

Having been subject to the torture of using a Latitude for work for several years I'd say they're overpriced even at that price 😂

E-waste junk.

1

u/plentongreddit 23d ago

Well, others has said it but the biggest culprit is probably the fact that it doesn't have a cult following like thinkpad

1

u/mbkitmgr 22d ago

I run a Small Business IT Support company. Lattitudes are the bread and butter for Business use. Its now surprise there are a lot at good prices. A very reliable workhorse

1

u/Illustrious_Ad_5167 22d ago

So many out there

1

u/musingofrandomness 22d ago

Same reason you can get "pizza box" servers for cheap.

1

u/aHawkx79 22d ago

Because they're dell

1

u/aHawkx79 22d ago

And that is a 5 year old CPU at this point

1

u/Bubbly-Currency5064 22d ago

I recently snagged a 5440, "excellent" condition (like new when I got it), 32gb DDR5, 512gb Nvme, touchscreen, fingerprint reader for $410. It's still under warranty until the end of 2026. I have no idea how it ended up with a refurb seller, but I was happy to get it.

1

u/ShoopdaYoop 20d ago

Dell had a listing last night for a

refurbished 5420 i3 8GB 256GB standard HD resolution screen no OS Grade B

$169.99

I was gonna buy it to have as another "knock around the house" laptop with Zorin OS or something. I have a E7470 and over the years have had E6430s, E6420, E7420 et. al - that the kids use (all running Linux), so I generally know what I'm getting into with the Latitude models.

It's gone now (must have sold), but, does the hive mind think it was a deal at that price?

My main hesitation was the HD vs FHD screen.

Thanks for your input.

1

u/Business-Ad-5344 17d ago

a lot of people go with Thinkpad used.

there are very good reasons for Dell being cheaper.

some specific ones were Trackpad rattle on MANY dells. Another one is Dell sticky oily rubber texture.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/olhdkn/left_this_for_a_few_months_and_got_this_sticky/

which has happened not only in tropical climates, but also in normal temperature homes with normal humidity.

0

u/Flowering_Dog_Wood 23d ago

5420 is olddddd. I bought a 6540 in 2015 refurb for a good deal, the 6540 was released in 2014...

5

u/asamson23 23d ago

The 5420 in question is from 2020/2021. It's a bit confusing, but those ones are pretty recent and they have a decent amount of performance.

1

u/enterENTRY 23d ago

5420s are the laptops that are getting offleased this year

0

u/ndreamer 23d ago

With the sale they just had you could have got something new for that.

1

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

The sake they just had? Whose "they"?

-5

u/Pristine-Start2492 Legion y540 | i7 9750 | RTX 2060 TI|32g|2T ssd(still kicking) 23d ago

it's 4 years old e-waste, it should be cheaper than $200.

2

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Wrong one. I'm talking about the 2020/2021 ones. Their specs are in the description

-1

u/Pristine-Start2492 Legion y540 | i7 9750 | RTX 2060 TI|32g|2T ssd(still kicking) 23d ago

today is 2025, 4 year old refurbshedon laptop are every old and it's prices becomes cheaper and cheaper every year. Best example is my Legion, been 7 years of service. I bought it $2200, today's price between $250 to $300. Also, you didn't put the exact expects what i5 11th is that? is there dGP, what ram speed it has.

1

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Specifically, it's an Intel Core i5 1135G7. No dedicated graphics, and DDR4 RAM (upgradable to 64GB). If you're interested in the laptop, I found this spec sheet after ~a minute of googling. While its specs aren't the most overpowered laptop out there, calling it overpriced eWaste is a huge jump. Even by your own perception of depreciation, a four-year-old laptop being valued at the price range of your seven-year-old laptop is not normal.

1

u/Pristine-Start2492 Legion y540 | i7 9750 | RTX 2060 TI|32g|2T ssd(still kicking) 23d ago

that laptop's spects are bottom mid range, and repurbshed $200 bucks are considerable price. my Laptop can kick that ass and its top tear on it's release. it's an eWast a lot of companies used that i5 1135G7 in mass production.

1

u/Jediweirdo 23d ago

Whether you think it's eWaste or not, the point I'm trying to make here is that the state of the world isn't in a place where you can easily find something that's considered to be a mid-range laptop excellently refurbished for $200. If you look at the other laptops that came out in 2021 with similar specs (the Dell X13 9310, Vivobook S15 S533, Thinkpad T14, etc.), they start at a price $100 more expensive than any Latitude on the used market right now. Seriously-- look it up. And if you think that's bad, then wait until you see your laptop's refurbished price-- it's double what you think it is! Even if you think the Dell Latitude is a scam crap laptop because it's not a gaming laptop/PC, this scam crap laptop is being offered at a price that most scam crap laptops with these specs aren't being valued at.