LIQUID ROSIN FLUX ONLY!!!!!!!!!! Stay away from Ruby flux, or other liquid acid fluxes, unless you want to destroy the computer.
Correct
Yes and No: Yes the one you bought looks like it is crap, but no that particular Antex one also looks pretty bad.
I suggest that if you want to buy an Antex iron for general use then the tyle C, CS, XS etc are better than the one you listed above, though all are fairly low powered. See how the bit surrounds the element on the better Antex ones, whereas the worse ones look like a screwdriver tip that is inserted into a hole in the element. For your job probably none of these are powerful enough anyway.
They also do a temperature controlled version (all built into the handle), look for BA14Q on Maplin. Because the temperature control will prevent it from overheating, they can increase the heater power to 50W, which is better. That iron might have enough power for what you want.
None of these irons will be very good on a multi-layer laptop board unless you are quite lucky / well practiced. You really want a Metcal MX500 but that is expensive.
In any case you can get some old scrap circuit boards of similar construction, and practice on those until you are confident.
Chris
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