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What exactly does refurbished mean? Is it a good idea to buy one of these?
refurbished means that the manufacturer has taken the item and went through it with a finer comb. They also usually replace batteries and maybe keyboard, etc. So you get an item cheaper than new, and usually with the same warranty as a new one.
Most refurbished items are customer returns. Let's say I buy a computer, and decide not to use it. If I return it to the store within the time frame, they can't resell it as new. Depending on the store policy, they may resell it as open, or send it back to manufacturer. Then the manufacturer would look it over and resell it as refurbished.
If given the choice as refurbished, I usually take it. Unless there is a better price for new.
Thank you! I guess my biggest concern was that these would be of lesser quality than a new one.
Usually they aren't lesser quality. If you have a link to the refurbished, maybe we can take a look and compare that to the new. You will also want to look at warranty. If they offer the same warranty as new, then why not? But if the warranty isn't as long as new, then that is something to consider.
I was looking at Costco, Best Buy and Amazon. There are a ton of refurbished ones on there. You get a better deal on the refurbished ones and with the exception of Costco (which has an included extended warranty) the warranty is the standard manufacturers warranty.
I would go with Costco, but I was actually looking for something with Windows 7 because I hate Windows 8 and that's all Costco has.
Just a little anecdotal evidence. The first laptop I ever bought was a refurb back in '03.
Every time I shut the computer down, I'd have to reinstall the operating system to get it to start back up. lol...
Something was obviously wrong, and while I was a bit taken aback by the issue, I was more astounded that this issue wasn't caught by the people that refurbished it.
I tend not to trust refurbs. That is to say I don't think refurbs are objectively bad in any way. I just mean there's a higher potential for something being wrong and, depending on where you get it from and who refurb'd it, there's a higher potential for it to be a crap refurb job.
Basically if you can save a lot of money, get a refurbished. If it isn't that much money, then maybe get a brand new for your own peace of mind and to satisfy your level of comfort.
Basically if you can save a lot of money, get a refurbished. If it isn't that much money, then maybe get a brand new for your own peace of mind and to satisfy your level of comfort.
Exactly. To me, refurbished = used. "Refurbished" can mean whatever the seller wants it to mean. It might only mean that they scrubbed the dirt off the keys and cleaned the screen. lol. If it's manufacturer- refurbished and comes with a decent warranty, then it has a bit more credibility than just a used laptop.
You have to look at the CPU and determine the age of it. Core 2 Duo is like 4 years ago, and first i3 / i5 are maybe, what, 2010? So I see no point in buying a $400 refurbished Core 2 Duo, when I can just go to ebay and get one "used" for $200 - $225.
There are some pretty tempting $400 - $500 new deals out there on Windows 8 machines. This past summer, I could not find values like that new, so I bought used i3 and i5 laptops on ebay. No warranty, but none of them have any problems, either. I wanted something newer but cheap, because I was waiting for Intel Haswell to be released. (That is scheduled for June now. Was originally supposed to be 1Q or 2Q 2013.)
ETA: If you buy used, buy one that takes DDR3 RAM. DDR2 is vastly overpriced and also slower. You can install 8GB DDR3 for $40 or less. DDR2 4GB was $80 or more, so $160 & up to get 8GB! Almost more than the old laptop is worth, haha.
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