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by Cheer2171 894 days ago
Go to Walmart.com, desktop computer category, sort by low price. Many have HDDs. My parents do the analog version of this for appliances, and if I gave them the task of buying a desktop computer, they would probably buy one like this with a HDD.

The surprising thing is that you can buy a desktop computer (but no monitor) for less than a day of minimum wage in California.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Restored-Dell-Optiplex-790-Deskto...
1 comments
Ekaros 893 days ago
It is not that surprising when the computer is actually over decade old... i5-2400 released in Q1 2011.

What I find more surprising is that there is any margins in selling those sort of computers. Enough to actually reliably profit.

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gorlilla 893 days ago
It's because they're off-lease trash that they hobble back together with used HDDs and used RAM. They target low-income; budget conscious/frugal; elderly and those otherwise ignorant of the scam. Backed by a 30-day return policy!

I get these types of machines (actually somewhat newer i5/i7 11th gen+) from an Amazon returns auction house for $5-$20/ea and they invariably have mismatched ram in them and HDDs with 50-70K hours on them already. They also typically won't boot because of a faulty ram stick 9r failed HDD.

That being said, I also have 4 kids and those machines have served well as 'starter' systems. They get to upgrade the PSU, HDD-->SSD, GPU and max out the ram on a shoestring budget.

Between a local MicroCtr and /r/homelabsales ... They get to build out performant systems for $300-$600 total. I also consider this to be a much greater investment than just throwing a console at them.

Profits or not for them; we found some profit in their waste stream.

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