Buying Second Hand Laptop: Worth it or not?

[morphKET]

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is doing well tonight (my time at least). I am in a interesting situation. I found a second hand laptop(s) and want to run it by others to see if it is a good buy or if I should run as fast as I can.

I found a Sager NP8150 someone is selling on Craiglist. Looks to be good and no issues but am waiting on final word. The specs are:

i7-2920XM
16GB DDR3 (Not sure about details)
Nvidia GTX580M 2GB
500GB HDD
15" 1080P

They are asking $600 for it.

The next one is a Lenovo Y500 like new as well of Craiglist, but with a bit newer specs:

i7-3630QM
8GB DDR3
Dual Nvidia 650M SLI (total of 4GB )
1TB HDD + 64GB SSD mSATA
15" 1080p

And this one is asking $650.

I like the thought that I can update the graphics card in the Sager but not sure about it being oh so future proof (not that really is an issue as I change all the time). So point being...if you were in my shoes, which of the two would you go for and why? I do want to do some gaming and work photo/video editing and know either way, both are more than enough.

Or should I simply save up a bit, and go for one of the newer Haswell i7s? I'd like to be able to take it with me next fall when I return to school but it really isn't a deal breaker as I know battery on the two is not going to win any awards. Let's hear it

[marcotheminer]

What are you going to use it for mainly?
Mining or just as a personal laptop?

[morphKET]

I guess more for a personal laptop as I got a older Thinkpad now so I could keep mining on it (or buy a Raspherry Pi and have it run off that) Unless you might have some suggestions? I have a single Jalapeno running but might have some USB Bitfurrys come later down the line

[b!z]

spend $500 and build a pc. use the thinkpad for school.
problem solved.

[tunctioncloud]

It is not expensive, so may be good for playing games when you traveling - you probably have to buy new battery aswell, but do not expect these to be used home to play games - the laptop gets very hot soon

[morphKET]

spend $500 and build a pc. use the thinkpad for school.
problem solved.

I thought about that but with being mobile as I am, it really isn't an option, at least for the time being. So it boils down between the two or something else in the notebook realm.

[mogrith]

So the second one should boot faster with the SSD and has 2x the HDD space but has less ram and slightly weaker video.

so your use style will make the difference. do you need lots of space for raw photo/video files (2nd) or havemany open windows and 50+ tabs open on browser(1st)

[dragonkid]

If I am in your shoes, I will pick the Lenovo, it is better spec. Also Lenovo make good laptops. I only buy Lenovo or Macbook Pro. They are the only 2 laptops I buy.