How good a deal is this?

I've got an opportunity to pickup around 20 or so laptops at $7/ea. The seller says they all have something wrong with them, but that most will fire up (some you have to jumper though since they're partially disassembled.

The seller will throw in a 256MB stick a RAM for each. They will all have batteries, but not necessarily chargers. All are P4 or Pentium M or newer. If I have to scrap them all, can I still make a profit?

I need to let him know by tomorrow.

No way. Not only do laptop parts weigh less laptops take at least 3 times as long to take apart. I wont turn down a good deal on a lot of laptops but i sure wouldnt pay a premium.

since he already knows so much about them, i'd guess he also knows they'll need more parts to fix than they're possibly worth ? For each laptop you can offer for sale you need at least one (good/working) battery, one charger, and one optical drive (parts easily removed or commonly missing in those type situations) plus all the other necessary ingredients, good screen & video, sufficient memory (256 is a bit lean these days), decent keyboard, working touchpad, legal operating system, etc. I actually think you'd be buying his headache.

if they gave me 7 bucks to take them, I would go for it. Unless you KNOW you will be able to make 5 of them work, and can sell them for 75-100 ea, pass. I have 50+ sitting here that I did not pay a penny for! jus my 2 cents (which I saved up by NOT paying for laptops) ;-) BroJer

Bad deal..don't do it..as stated they are a PITA to take apart n not worth it I'm my mind..I've taken apart a few n they are way more difficult than towers...I'm stockpiling mine to sell to someone off of CL..

on the positive side, laptops are easy sells and easy shippers. At least they used to be, probably still better than towers. I'd seldom ship towers, sold all those locally, and sold the laptops on ebay

Just my two cents. As others have stated used working laptops have great resale. I could sell used working p4 laptops(with/1gig) all day for $50+. But if you don't know how to fix them I would not purchase at that price.

If you know how to fix them.. I suppose..good idea

Thanks everyone for confirming my gut feeling.

My buyer pay's as high grade boards, just like a server board, but they are hell to tear apart, and the boards are small. A hammer does wonders with these guy's.

I primarily make good profit off refirbishing laptops and desktops. I get fully working ones on occasions and do not pay a penny. All my few customers hand them over and they know my service pickup is free. That's more than enough.

Not if you have knowledge of fixing the up and reselling them...I would say yes.(That's if you have knowledge of fixing them up. Laptops are EASY to sell. They don't last more than a few days if they are priced right.

Find out more info on what is wrong with them...Then make a decision but for your situation I'd say no.