I’ve been running Haiku on hand-me-down x86 boxes for a while, and lately most of my cheap hardware has come from Japan’s secondhand market rather than eBay. Used business machines over there are genuinely cheap, so here are some field notes for anyone hunting an inexpensive dedicated Haiku box.
Why the Japanese used market?
Japan cycles through corporate lease-return PCs and off-lease ThinkPads in huge volume, and the local resale culture (Hard Off’s junk bins, Mercari, Rakuma) keeps prices low. A lot of these are exactly the modest, well-supported x86 hardware Haiku likes — Intel/AMD business desktops and older ThinkPads with standard chipsets, not exotic parts.
Mini-PCs / SFF desktops — nice as a silent always-on Haiku box:
- HP ProDesk Mini main unit — ~$53
- Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro — ~$64
- older HP EliteDesk / Elite Mini units — ~$100–260 depending on spec
- newer N97 / Ryzen mini-PCs (NiPoGi, GMKtec) if you want something current — ~$120–205
Live listings I was looking at: used mini-PCs on OneMall
ThinkPads — the classic “just works” laptop for alt-OS folks:
- bare ThinkPad main units (untested / junk-bin) — from ~$29
- ThinkPad X395 / L13 (Ryzen 5, 16GB, 256GB) — ~$140–197
- X13 / E14 Gen2 (i7 or Ryzen 5, 16GB) — ~$190–226
- X1 Carbon — ~$308 for a tidier one
Live listings: used ThinkPads on OneMall
(Prices above are what I saw today; they move around. “Junk” / ジャンク usually just means untested, not broken — often it’s a missing SSD or no OS, which is perfect for us.)
Buying from outside Japan
Most of these sellers (Mercari JP, Rakuma, Hard Off’s online shop) are domestic-only and won’t ship overseas or take a foreign card. The usual workaround is a proxy/forwarding service: you pay them, they buy at the Japanese domestic price, consolidate, and forward it on. Three things worth checking:
- Service fee — flat vs. percentage. On a $50 junk mini-PC a flat ¥300–500 fee is fine; a 10–15% cut is less fun.
- Shipping method — lithium batteries (i.e. any laptop) can’t go by air on some carriers; EMS / surface are usually OK. Confirm before you commit.
- Battery condition — assume any used laptop battery is dead and budget for a replacement. You’re buying it for the board, not the cell.
Anyone else running Haiku on Japanese-market hardware? Curious which ThinkPad generation people find smoothest — I’ve had good luck with the X13 / L13 AMD ones.