Dirt cheap laptops

[mischa1983]

Hi all --

I am looking to replace a very old laptop that was used only to hook up to a TV and watch Netflix, DVDs, etc. It seems cheaper to buy a $200 laptop and then attach an external DVD drive or just run a DVD player to the TV, than to take the price bump up to laptops with one built-in. One caveat is that I would like to be able to install bit-torrent, Windows Media Player, etc so presumably a Windows machine rather than just a Chromebook or something?

Any recommendations? It looks like most machines in the $200 price range are pretty interchangeable, but I am hoping the experts on this forum will have some suggestions.

thanks & happy new year!

 

[AssumingUnicorn]

The laptops I see around BestBuy and Fry's that are in the $200 range does everything you need. I wouldn't need to use the external DVD drive since the laptops would come with one and instead hook it up to a TV using HDMI. Windows machine would be a lot better than a Chromebook IMO and you can find a laptop just as cheap as a Chromebook. If you get newsletter from BestBuy or Fry's or Newegg, that always have deals on laptops every now and then.

 

[BadActor]

You can also pick up a refurbished one off of Fleabay that will already have the drive. I've seen them as low as a hundred bucks.

http/www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-IBM-Thinkpad-T60-15-Core-2-Duo-1-67GHz-1-50GB-RAM-80GB-HDD-Laptop-/191735999220?hash=item2ca45b2af4:g:IPEAAOSwAYtWQqAl