Watch Out for Falling Objects!

Sometimes things (obvious things) just come falling out of the sky and they hit you square on the head! Last week, it happened to me. I don't even really remember what I was looking for, but I ran across an X300 ThinkPad. It was listed "For Repair, As Is", with a cracked screen, no hard drive or cover, and no A/C adapter, but with 2 batteries. Fully working otherwise! I'm not even certain what the guy wanted for it, but there was a "make offer" button on it, so I figured..... what the heck? I offered $45..... and he took it!

Let's be clear here: a working X300 for $45 ($55 after shipping). Came with 2 (1 OEM, 1 Aftermarket) batteries which routinely sell for $40 ea on eBay. Turns out, after I messaged him asking about the drive cover, he not only found it, but agreed to include an A/C adapter that he was also able to find. OK, I get that I have an X301 that I just upgraded to, but here was a functioning unit that I knew for a fact was worth more than twice the price in parts alone! On top of that, I have one more 1.8" 64Gb SSD sitting around somewhere, and although I knew the unusual WXGA+ LED screen was expensive, I figured I'd be OK to wait for a good deal on one. 

After a little bit of research on said screen, things didn't look very good. I was seeing prices ranging from a low of $175 to a high of over $300! This screen is different than most others. When the X300 was released in February of 2008, it sported one of the very few LED lit screens, and at 13.3" (unusual size), with a high resolution of 1440 x 900..... we'll just say that not a lot of companies rushed out there to adopt it. In my mind, I thought: hey, at least I got a couple of batteries and a power adapter out of this deal, and prepared to leave it sitting on a shelf for a while. 

Apparently, things were not through falling on me. The computer came, I examined it, and sure enough, there were 2 good batteries (about $60 worth since one was not OEM), there was 4Gb of RAM in the sockets (another $40 worth), and an A/C adapter (worth maybe $25). At this point, the value to me was already at $125. Then I checked that the machine did indeed work, so let's just say the parts value would be a conservative $125, making this things value at around $250. But you know me. Can't leave good enough alone. So, over the course of the next several days, I'd periodically scan eBay for a screen or a dead X300 with a good screen. I even considered giving/trading it to my friend Kym who has a severely "bowed" (don't ask, but I'll just say it involved UPS) X300. He could swap in his screen and be in good shape. Then something small fell on me. I saw a screen that the guy wanted $115. A little quick math puts a working X300 at $170. That's not too bad! But I decided to look around a little more. That's when the "big object" fell out of the sky and smacked me! A listing for a "working pull" screen for $59, with my friend, the "Make Offer" button! It had an issue in that there was a little "bloom" in the lower left corner, where the backlight is a little out of whack. It looks like somebody is shining a tiny flashlight from the corner into the screen. It's about a quarter of an inch long. After picking myself up out of the floor, I made an offer.... for $50. I got confirmation in about 5 minutes that he took it! 

The screen came today, and I got it out of the box, and swapped into the X300 in record time. I'd say that I got it done in about 10 minutes. We had my son's school program to go to, so I didn't get to finish till just a little while ago. It did take me a little while to realize that the original 64Gb Samsung SSD from my old X300 was still in the daughter's dead X61! I pulled it out, simply plugged it straight into the "new" computer and it booted! It didn't like it, and wanted to know if that's what I really wanted to do, but sure enough, it when right on through the boot after I told it yes! It was a rough start up, but it worked. Now, I'm getting updates done since, as you can imagine, the drivers are a mess. The total comes to $105.

Sometimes, it better to be lucky than to be good!