Standards
How we test
Every machine goes through the same bench process before it gets a price. This page is the long version. The short version rides along in the box with each unit.
The bench exam
Every unit, every time. Nothing is sampled and nothing is assumed from the model number.
| What we check | How | What fails it |
|---|---|---|
| Processor & memory | Sustained load test with error checking | Any computational error, thermal shutdown, or throttling below spec |
| Storage | SMART attributes plus a full-surface read | Reallocated sectors trending up, or wear indicators past 90% |
| Battery | Design capacity vs. current full-charge capacity, cycle count | Below 70% health. Those units get a new battery or don’t ship |
| Display | Full-screen colour sweep for dead and stuck pixels, backlight bleed | Any dead pixel in the central zone; visible bleed |
| Keyboard & trackpad | Every key registered individually; multi-touch gestures | One unresponsive key |
| Ports & radios | Live device on every port; Wi-Fi and Bluetooth association | Any port that doesn’t enumerate a device |
The wipe
Every drive is sanitized before anything else happens to the machine: before photos, before the operating system goes back on. Sanitization is performed following the guidelines in NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2. (Rev. 1 was withdrawn in September 2025.)
The certificate in your box prints the method actually achieved on your drive, not a blanket claim:
- Purge: the drive’s own cryptographic erase or secure-erase command, then verified.
- Clear: a full overwrite, then verified. Used when a drive refuses the firmware erase, usually because it reports as frozen.
When a drive can only reach Clear, the certificate says Clear. The tool records the downgrade honestly rather than rounding up, which is the entire point of having a record.
Verification is by read-back sampling, which is the method the guideline permits. We say the erase was verified, not that data is provably unrecoverable. Nobody can honestly promise the second thing.
A note on wording: NIST publishes guidelines and certifies no one, so no company or product can be “NIST certified.” What we issue is a certificate of sanitization: a document recording what was done, modelled on the sample in the standard’s own Appendix G. Our seal reads tested · wiped · documented because those are the three things we did ourselves.
What’s in your papers
Two documents, one packet, in every box, on eBay orders too. Page one is the certificate of adoption: the machine, its vitals, and the sanitization record. Pages two onward are the raw diagnostic report: measured values, pass/fail per subsystem, battery detail, SMART summary, and timestamps.
The certificate carries a private link and QR code that opens the same record online, so it survives the paper copy and travels with the machine when you sell it on. That link is the only way in. We deliberately don’t publish a searchable index of serial numbers, because that would expose every machine we’ve ever sold to scraping and make it trivial to clone our listings.
Re-tests never overwrite a certificate that’s already in someone’s hands. The old link keeps working and says it’s been superseded, pointing at the current record.
Grading, in plain language
| Grade | What it means |
|---|---|
| Grade A | Light or no cosmetic wear. Nothing you’d notice at arm’s length. Any marks are listed anyway. |
| Grade B | Visible honest wear: scuffs, shiny keycaps, a dent that never reached a component. Every mark is described and photographed. |
| Grade C | Heavy cosmetic wear, priced accordingly. Function is identical; it just looks like it worked for a living. |
Grades describe appearance only. Function is pass/fail. A machine either passes the whole bench exam or it doesn’t get listed. There is no such thing here as a Grade C on performance.
Warranty & returns, in plain language
- 30-day returns, no restocking fee. Changed your mind? You cover return shipping. Something’s wrong with it? We do.
- 30 days of post-adoption careon direct orders. If the hardware fails, we replace the unit or refund you in full. We’re a small shop, so there’s no repair depot and no three-week wait, just a fast make-it-right.
- Batteries are guaranteed at their listed health on arrival. Normal degradation after that is wear, not a defect.
What we won’t sell
- Anything that failed any part of the bench exam.
- Batteries below 70% health, unless replaced first.
- Machines that can’t run Windows 11. We don’t ship dead ends.
- Machines whose drive couldn’t be sanitized to at least Clear with verification. If we can’t prove the erase, the drive gets destroyed instead.
- Anything whose Windows licence doesn’t legitimately transfer with the hardware. If there’s no embedded OEM licence, we say so and price it without an OS.
Take the rest at its word: everything on a unit page is measured, not estimated. If a number isn’t there, it’s because we couldn’t measure it, not because it was inconvenient.