frequently asked questions (FAQ's)
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Where are you located, do you have a showroom?
 
I work from home in Gray Road, Sunderland SR28BW (15 mins walk from Park Lane)
 
viewing is welcomed, without obligation, by appointment at a mutually agreeable time.


How are you cheaper than eBay or Amazon ?

By working from home, I do not have the overheads of a shop with staff and rents etc
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My supplier gives me 6 month warranty so I do not have to add contingency money on the laptop 


Where do you buy your laptops

I buy in bulk from companies that renew their equipment every three years

most companies only choose to do this between April and September as they don't want the upheaval before Christmas

please therefore expect stock to run out by mid November and there maybe nothing left for Christmas until possibly March

Don't wait till Christmas Eve and expect a bargain, there maybe none left.

last December, 3 traders bought everything I had for their own shops and my supplier had nothing left to replace them


Do you part exchange?

most customers change their laptop when theirs are old and slow, but the cost for me to upgrade it with SSD, new battery & labour is typically £65 and it will still be an old laptop with a 2 hour battery life

I have to factor, what will people pay me for yours with only 30 day warranty compared to my newer faster £95 laptops with 6 month warranty.

by getting the old laptops for free, I can refurbish them and still offer them to families' on low incomes for about £60


Deliveries for fuel ?

delivery does not just cost fuel. My car is leased and costs me 45p a mile each way.

If I am also driving an hour round trip, then I would need to paid £20 for that too 

It is therefore cheaper for you to bribe a friend for a fiver or use public transport

Sunderland deliveries are free, between 10am and 3pm daily at a mutual agreed time


Do you post laptops?
 
no, but your friend can do a video chat with you when they get here, choose a laptop and your friend can post on your behalf


Do you take card payments?

I only use card payments for deliveries to the registered card holder's address.

that means you cannot use card payments when collecting a laptop sorry and I accept cash or bank transfer


Are they refurbished?

no, none of these are sent back to the manufacturer for repair or refurbishment.

I have only called this section refurbished laptops to be found in Google search results

They have all been removed from a working environment, data wiped, cleaned and re-prepped by myself
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Battery life
 
All laptops have used batteries and their capabilities will vary somewhere between 2 and 6 hours depending on use and age
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batteries should be regarded as a consumable and are cheap to replace if you require longer duration
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you can still continue to use all laptops via the mains charger when they get low too
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How are 8th gen faster with better battery life?
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8th gen are quite often Quad Core processors, rather than dual core
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they also have a higher turbo boost of 3.4ghz or more for demanding tasks
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8th gen can use m.2 NVMe SSD which are about 20 x faster than mechanical drive
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the turbo boost rarely kicks in, giving superior battery life and they can run at a lower clock speed than a 6th gen most of the time to consume less energy, hence 8th gen batteries last longer
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512gb & 1tb SSD upgrades
 
a new 512gb m.2 NVMe drive costs me £35 and a 1tb m.2 NVMe costs me £55 for the part alone

there is a £20 contribution to the extra time required to clone an existing drive and fit it
 
I can save you this £20 labour, if you buy a laptop that I have not started yet so that I install everything only once

I do not wish to ruin my reputation by fitting a heavily used 2nd hand server drive to save you £30
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Why can't you just buy laptops with 512gb SSD already in?
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I buy in bulk from companies, who renew their laptops every 3 to 5 years
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I can only buy what they bought 3 years ago, such as a fast i5 with 8gb, 256gb SSD in assorted screen sizes
 
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Do you do windows 11?
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this is a free upgrade via windows update on 8th gen or higher and takes about 2 hours

Microsoft asks the user to create or sign in with a Microsoft Account before continuing

I do not wish to ask everyone for their personal account details and passwords, hence I leave it for you to do
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Windows 10 support ending October 2025 
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Windows 10 will still work for several years yet, providing your browser and anti virus are up to date
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It is only the windows updates that will stop being delivered, but Microsoft have spent 10 years perfecting it

The independents such as myself will continue to support it, whereas Currys, Dell, HP etc have to promote the latest operating system to comply with their licencing deals​​
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Office Pro 2021
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Office 365 is a yearly subscription product at about £80 per year !
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I prefer to install Office Pro 2021 and I buy a lifetime activation key from CJS-cdkeys.com at £18.98
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This is only valid for one installation, lasts for life, providing you don't factory reset Windows and cannot be shared with your friends. If you uninstall or remove it, you would need to buy the key again to activate as they are a single use licence
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If you upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, it will remain there and still be activated and available
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Can you find me a specific laptop on eBay?
 
I prefer to sell quality laptops that I can get from my regular supplier, so that I can offer the same 6 month warranty
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I can't buy specific laptops any cheaper than you via eBay and they would only have 30 day warranty, be in poorer condition with scratches, gouges, dents and perhaps with zero battery guarantee and cannot be returned for cosmetic or battery issues

For me to source an i7, x360 hinged, 16gb, touch screen, EliteBook on eBay for example, means I would have to add the cost price of the dearest part to cover myself in case it failed i.e. motherboard or touch screen assembly £250 on top of the purchase price
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Why don't you also sell new laptops​
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I specialise in the £85 to £175 price bracket predominantly for the student market
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I have to limit my total sales to less than £85,000 in any rolling 12 months to avoid compulsory VAT registration

If I exceed this turnover, all my prices would need to have 20% VAT added, which I wish to avoid if possible

This is why expensive MacBook Pro for example are limited to just a handful of units



Regards

Richard​