If you have been considering getting a new laptop, you might want to look at getting a refurbished laptop.
But, if that is the way you want to go, you will need to get the best refurbished laptop possible.
Really, the answer to this is simple. Refurbs are really just adjusted laptops that have been put back on the market after having been inspected.
That means that you should be able to find a refurbished laptop in whatever type of laptop that you might need. So, if you are looking at a laptop for working from home, there are refurbs for that.
Or, if you are looking for a laptop for doing online school, there are refurbs for that as well.
We have broken down the best used laptops that we found, helping you to identify the right refurbished laptop for your individual needs.
7 Best Refurbished Laptops (2022)
Device | Display | CPU | Rating | Check Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Microsoft Surface 2 Editor's Choice | 13.5-inch | Intel i5 | 100% | |
2. MacBook Air MD760 High Performance | 13.3-inch | Intel i5 | 99% | |
3. Dell Latitude E7470 Budget Friendly | 14-inch | Intel i5 | 96% | |
4. Asus TUF FX505DT Gaming Laptop | 15.6-inch | AMD 5 | 97% | |
5. Lenovo ThinkPad T460 Business Laptop | 14-inch | Intel i5 | 98% | |
6. HP Stream 14 | 14-inch | Intel N4000 | 92% | |
7. HP FHD Laptop | 14-inch | Intel N5000 | 93% |
1. Microsoft Surface 2 Refurbished Laptop
Best Refurbished Laptop (Editor's Choice)
Our recommendation for the best refurbished laptop is the Microsoft Surface 2. The Surface line has been reliable since it came out, so if you can get a refurbished one, you will be coming out on top.
Design
Looking at its design, the Surface 2 comes in a variety of colours, from Platinum and Matte Black to Burgundy and Cobalt Blue. The screen size of the Surface 2 is 13.5” with a screen resolution of 2256 x 1504. The laptop itself is very light, weighing only 2.76 pounds, making it easy to carry.
The Surface 2 also has a USB port as well as a mini display port, but it does not come with an SD port, if you needed one. The best design feature of the Surface 2, however, is that it can function as a tablet if you want it to.
The display will pop off of the keyboard and act exactly like a tablet. The screen is also a touchscreen and will respond to a touch pen as well.
Performance
The Surface 2 comes with an Intel Core i5 CPU with a capacity of 1.6 GHz. It also has 8 GB of RAM, so it should be able to perform very well. The laptop comes with Windows 10 Home as its operating system, which is the most common operating system on the market. The hard drive interface is an SSD, so it should be fast.
The wireless communication standard of the Surface 2 is 802.11ac. Meanwhile, the hard drive rotational speed is 7200 RPM, so the laptop should able to keep up with your needs without causing it to slow down or overheat.
2. Apple MacBook Air MD760LL Laptop
High Performance
If you are looking for a laptop that is high performance, check out the MacBook Air. The Air is by far one of the best-performing laptops you can get, but it is also one of the lightest laptops that you can get, so if you can get your hands a on a refurb, you will be in for a treat.
Design
Like we mentioned before, the most noteworthy feature of the MacBook Air is its weight. This laptop only weighs 2.96 pounds, making it incredibly easy to carry around.
The display on the Air is 13.3 inches, so it should be big enough to see well, but not so big that it is hard to take places. The display resolution is 1440 x 900 as well.
The average battery life for the MacBook Air is 12 hours, which is remarkable. You will only need to charge it once a day. The MacBook Air comes with two USB 3.0 ports for connectivity and even has built-in Bluetooth.
Performance
When you look at the performance for the MacBook Air, you will see that it has 128 GB of capacity. It also has a CPU speed of 1.3 GHz. The CPU is an Intel Core i5 dual-core processor. The Air also has a graphics feature, using the Intel HD Graphics 5000.
The wireless standard that the Air uses is the 802.11ac, which is likely what you are looking for in your laptop. It also has a SSD interface. It uses the Mac OS X operating system, so you will get all of the benefits of a UNIX system. The Turbo Boost feature goes up to 2.6 GHz.
3. Dell Latitude E7470 Refurbished Laptop
Budget Friendly
For a more budget friendly refurbished laptop, check out the Dell Latitude E7470. This is a great performing laptop for being budget friendly, making it a nice choice for anyone who wants a decent laptop without the cost.
Design
Let’s start by looking at its design. The Latitude E7470 weighs only 3.3 pounds, making it incredibly light. Its display is 14 inches with a screen resolution of 1366 x 768. The display is LED backlit, so you shouldn’t have any trouble looking at the screen for long hours. It does have anti-glare built-in as well, which will be nice if you are video chatting.
Looking at its ports, the Latitude E7470 has a headset connector, a memory card reader, a USB 3.0 connector with PowerShare, an HDMI connector, a mini display port, and, best of all, it comes with two USB 3.0 ports.
Performance
The performance for the E7470 is pretty decent. It has 8 GB of RAM, so it should be able to keep pace with what you are doing. The RAM is not the best if you are planning on doing any online gaming through your computer, so you should check the requirements of the game system you wanted to play before you buy.
The E7470 comes with the Windows 10 Pro operating system, instead of the Windows 10 Home that you will find with most laptops. Pro comes with a lot more customizable features and security options than the Home version does.
The graphics card RAM size is 2 MB. The card is integrated as well, so you should be able to watch videos on your computer without trouble. It is an Infrared wireless type as well.
4. Asus TUF FX505DT Refurbished Laptop
Best Refurbished Gaming Laptop
For anyone looking for a gaming laptop, you can get a great refurb and save yourself some money.
Our suggestion for the best refurbished gaming laptop is the Asus TUF FX505DT. This is a powerful laptop with a great graphics card.
Design
The TUF FX505DT has a 15.6 inch display with an excellent resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The laptop itself weighs 4.85 pounds, so it is a little on the heavy side, but unless you are carrying it around a lot, it might not make too much of a difference for you.
The screen has a thin bezel around it so you will get as much screen as possible without increasing the size of the laptop itself.
The TUF FX505DT comes with one USB 2.0 port, but it does not come with the faster USB 3.0 port. The amount of ports that you really need depends on your situation and what you are doing with the laptop.
Performance
The TUF FX505DT comes with an 8 GB RAM to help keep things moving. The CPU is an AMD CPU with a speed of 3.7 GHz.
That means that the laptop should be able to take on most types of computer games that you might be playing with. It has a 256 GB SSD, which might not work if you have a ton of heavy duty games for computers, so look at what the system requirements are for your favourite game.
It comes with an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac wireless communication standard, so it should work with any wireless standard that you might have and do it with efficiency.
5. Lenovo ThinkPad T460 Laptop
Business Laptop
For the perfect laptop for business or working from home, check out the Lenovo ThinkPad T460. This is a versatile laptop that will be able to do many different activities.
Design
Let’s start with the design for the computer. It has a 14 inch screen, which is a happy medium between being too large and too small. It has a pretty small bevel as well, only taking up a half an inch around the screen. The laptop weighs 5.74 pounds, which is pretty heavy for a laptop.
One of the best design features that you will get with the ThinkPad T460 is that it comes with three USB 3.0 ports. That means that you have plenty of places to plug in an external hard drive or any other attachment directly to the laptop. USB 3.0s are 10 times faster than the USB 2.0s as well.
It also has a 4-in-1 reader for MMC, SD, SDHC, and SDXC as well as an HDMI port and a MiniDP.
Performance
The ThinkPad T460 comes with 8 GB of RAM, which is about average. The CPU is pretty powerful. It is an Intel Core i5, so it should be able to keep up with whatever kind of work that you are doing online, especially at speeds up to 2.8 GHz.
The operating system that you will get with the ThinkPad is a Windows 10 Pro, which is exactly what you will want if you are going to be doing work with your laptop. If you can get one of these laptops as a refurbished model, you should be all set to get your work done, even if you are working from home.
6. HP Stream 14 Used Laptop
Another great laptop that you can get refurbished is the HP Stream 14. This is a great all-around laptop and while it might not be as high performance as some of the other laptops out there, this one will do exactly what it says it will.
Design
Looking at the design of the HP Stream 14, it comes with a 14 inch HD resolution screen. The resolution is 1366 x 768, which might not be the best resolution out there, but it is still pretty decent. The laptop itself only weighs 3.39 pounds, so it is one of the lightest laptops that you will find. As an added fun feature, the Stream 14 comes in a cobalt blue colour.
The Stream comes with two USB 3.1 ports as well for high-speed connectivity for whatever device you want to have that reliable connection.
Performance
Moving onto the performance, the Stream comes with 4 GB of RAM, which is not as much as other laptops, so it might not move quite as swiftly as some of the other computers. The Stream comes with an Intel CPU with a speed of 1.1 GHz.
The hard disk size is 32 GB as well, but that can always been boosted with the addition of an external hard drive, especially since there are USB 3.1 ports to use.
The laptop comes with integrated UHD graphics, so you should get a clean picture on that level. The computer will come with Windows 10 in S mode, but you can always get back to the standard Windows 10 Home if you would rather use that one.
7. HP 14 FHD Refurbished Laptop
The last laptop that we will look at for as a refurbished option is the HP 14 GHD. This is like a Chromebook in size and weight, making it pretty portable, so it works at home or on the go.
Design
Looking at the design of the HP 14 FHD, it has a 14 inch display, which is exactly what you should be looking for in a laptop screen size. The screen resolution is 1920 x 1080, which is excellent as far as resolution goes. The laptop itself only weighs 3.24 pounds, so it is incredibly portable.
The HP 14 FHD comes with a USB 3.1 Type-C port, so you can attach whatever kind of device you want. It also has two USB 3.1 Type-A ports. It is not a touchscreen device, if that was a feature that you were hoping to get from this kind of laptop.
Performance
The HP 14 FHD has a Windows 10 Home operating system, which is what you can expect. There are two internal processors with an Intel UHD Graphics 605 coprocessor. The CPU is an Intel Pentium Silver N5000 with a 1.1 GHz base frequency with up to 2.7 GHz burst frequency.
The battery life on this computer is up to 11 hours, so you really can go all day without need to charge the laptop. The webcam that comes with it is a HP TrueVision HD camera with an integrated dual-array digital microphone.
Really, this laptop is perfect for online school or working from home. It is powerful enough to handle video conferencing regularly without overheating or running into other types of problems.
Refurbished Laptops Explained
If you are looking at a refurbished laptop, but are not entirely sure what a refurbished laptop is, we can help.
They are often labelled as used devices, but they are not used in the regular sense. A refurbished product has been purchased new, then returned due to some kind of error or simply just a regular return of an unopened box.
What makes a refurbished laptop better in some ways than a factory-sealed new laptop is that it has been scrupulously looked over to see what kinds of errors the computer might have had and then had them corrected.
A laptop that is bought right from the store has been mass-produced, often to the point where it has not been individually considered.
Because they have been returned or had some kind of error that has since been corrected, you can get a refurbished laptop at a much more cost-effective price, with the added bonus of having all of its features thoroughly examined.
Final Words
While there are a lot of great refurbished laptops out on the market to choose from, we still have our favourite.
The best refurbished laptop that we found was the Microsoft Surface 2. The Surface is a great option for most laptop users, because it is versatile, powerful, and has a lot of fun features to work with.
There are plenty of laptops on the market that will work well as refurbished models, but you will need to think about the type of laptop that you need and what your expectations are before you can commit one way or another.
Hey, it’s James here. I’m the founder and editor here at RiverstoneNet.com. I’m a network engineer during the day and a blogger at night. Let me know if I can help you with choosing a new modem/router or troubleshooting your Internet connection.