The Refurbished Laptops Guide » Laptop Rental

Thinking About Renting A Laptop?

GuestPoster — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:37:38 +0000

The reason why anybody would want to rent a laptop is simple, they just need to use it on a temporary basis, and there is no urgent need to spend extra money in buying a laptop because it is going to be used for a short period of time. So if you need a laptop and you are not yet ready to purchase one, then renting a laptop is very much possible.

The first step toward renting a laptop is to visit a computer store near your home and inquire about the rates and different kinds of laptops available. If you cannot find a computer store that deals with rentals near your home, then you might want to consider searching for laptop rentals online. Most online companies who provide laptops on rent will charge you a little extra to ship the laptop to your destination, so you must keep in mind that besides the cost for renting the laptop, a little extra will be charged for shipping.

Another important fact about renting a laptop online is that besides the rent and shipping you may have to pay extra for the insurance which can be classified as laptop insurance. Please contact your insurance company to help you insure the laptop you will be renting, because once you rent the laptop, you are responsible if it is damaged or lost and with the insurance coverage you know that you are protected if anything happens to your rental.

When renting, or even researching laptops for sale, you have to be specific as to what kind of laptop you need, many companies have rentals that will provide a laptop with different operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT, to select from, some of the laptops may require modems and some will not, so you must be very sure to specify the type of rental you need and this way you will not have to spend extra for something that you will not be using, extra equipment means extra rent, so it is always nice check the various types of laptops available for rent and then decide if it is going to be useful to you. Also check the equipment for flaws, check the battery of the laptop, make sure that it is rechargeable and new.

Shopping:

HP Pavilion DV4-2161NR 14.1-Inch Laptop (Digital Plaid)

Compaq Presario CQ62-210US Laptop PC

Toshiba Satellite L505-GS5037 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Dell D600 Laptop 1.6ghz 40gb DVD/CDRW B Grade Includes Genuine XP Professional restore cd!

Toshiba Satellite L505-ES5015 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silver/Black)

Go easy: Rent a laptop

Brent — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:44:45 +0000

Have you ever just wanted to say “screw the store, I’m going to rent a laptop”? If you haven’t, you might want to try one of these days. Renting a laptop has never been easier. With the advent of companies such as Rent A Center, the options available to you are many. You can rent these laptops for as little as $10-$20/month, but you have to do your homework before you pull the trigger. Many of these “rent to own” schemes actually cost you a heck of a lot more in the long run than if you had bought the laptop outright. I spoke about this in my previous post about laptop rental a while back as well. You’re not doing yourself any favors by going to the big companies, let me tell you.

But what about going to a local company that may be more “in tune” with your local community? Those may actually have better deals that allow you to rent a laptop computer for much less long-run cost than the bigger competition. Rent A Center doesn’t have anything on some of the Mom and Pop stores that are running around these days. How should you find those types of stores? Easy: Go online and do a quick Google search. Google is your best friend when it comes to this. You can try to do a search such as “[city] rentals” or “[city] electronics rentals” in order to get some local listings in your local area. Any of the search engines will also be able to give you directions to the location, as well as listings of the websites. There you can often get online quotes, or possibly even get a phone number to call to discuss the rental terms. Easy, huh?

What kinds of laptops are available for rental? That depends on what type you want. If you want something higher-end, you may have a bit of a problem. Those types of laptops are often not in stock in a rental environment. Those either get taken up quickly, or the rental company doesn’t carry it. There’s no need to stock high-end laptops when most of the people who are doing the renting can’t really afford to buy a really nice system to begin with.

So, that about covers it for this topic. I definitely wanted to warn you about the pitfalls of renting a laptop before you just went out and did it, as convenient as it sounds on paper. Thanks for reading.

Shopping:

HP Pavilion DV6-2162NR 15.6-Inch Black Laptop--Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life

Compaq Presario CQ61-420US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Apple MacBook Pro MC374LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Satellite L505-ES5015 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silver/Black)

Dell D600 Laptop 1.6ghz 40gb DVD/CDRW B Grade Includes Genuine XP Professional restore cd!

Is a laptop rental a smart move?

Brent — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:22:49 +0000

Let me guess: If you’re on this site right now, you’re probably wondering about laptop rental. Why wouldn’t you? It’s cheap, it’s easy, and you don’t have to worry about the long-term care of the laptop. It’s a great tool for someone who can’t afford to go out and spend a large chunk of change on a new computer all at once. It’s also not a bad option for people who’ve had a laptop break on them, and absolutely have to have another for some reason. Businesspeople are such people; if their personal computer crashes, their companies sometimes just go out and rent one for them to use for work until repairs can be made.

The reasons to rent a laptop are plenty, but we won’t go into that with this post today. Today we’ll talk about why I don’t think laptop rental is a good idea. Yes, you heard that right. I’m going to tell you why doing such a thing can mean financial trouble for you in the long run.

Laptop rentals have a lot of costs that aren’t addressed up front by the rental agency. These costs add up throughout the life of the rental term, and in the end you come out much less ahead than you thought you would when you originally signed on the dotted line. In fact, you come out quite a large amount behind. This is due to a simple rule of life: interest. Yes, our friend interest strikes again. As the saying goes: “There are two things in life that are for certain: death and taxes.” I propose we make it three: “Death, taxes, and interest.”

Why does the interest on your laptop rental add up so quickly? It’s simple, really. The interest rates on rentals are absolutely massive, and aren’t usually brought to your attention unless you’re reading the small print (you are, aren’t you?). You’re just quoted a monthly rate and a rental term (the length, basically). It’s not like car shopping where you’ll negotiate. If the monthly rate sounds good to you, you sign. They’ll never tell you what the interest rate is.

Well, I’m here to tell you this: The interest rate you’ll see on a typical laptop rental is upwards of 100%. You heard that right: 100%. For every month you rent a laptop, you pay just as much interest as you pay principle, and that, my friends, is ridiculous and downright criminal. That rental agency is lining their pockets because you’re not reading the fine print.

Just remember this post the next time you get the idea to do something silly like think you can beat the system on a cheap laptop rental.