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Refurbished Electronics
Refurbished Electronics
Are Refurbished Notebooks Worth the Money?
Several newsletter subscribers have written recently to ask if buying a
refurbished notebook is a good idea or a waste of money.
With prices on brand-new notebooks continuing to fall, the question of
whether to save a few bucks buying refurbished is a timely one.
Two years ago, I checked out the refurbished notebook offerings from Dell,
Gateway, and IBM. I discovered that while you could save money buying
refurbished notebooks, the manufacturer's warranties and return policies
were much less desirable than those offered for new machines.
This time around, I discovered that a refurbished notebook--depending on
where you buy it and what your requirements are--can be even better
equipped than a brand-new, similarly priced notebook in the same product
line. Also, the warranty options are often equitable to those offered for
new machines.
I'll show you what I mean in a minute; but first, here's some background.
Refurbished vs. Used
Several manufacturers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM sell
refurbished notebooks online, as opposed to the used portables sold by
individuals on EBay.
A refurbished notebook may have been used only a few days. For example,
Dell offers a 30-day, money-back return on new computers purchased by
phone or online. Inevitably, some computers are returned during that
period because the customer didn't like the keyboard, decided the notebook
was too heavy to carry, and so on. After testing the portable to make sure
it's in proper working order, it may be resold online as a refurbished
model.
A used notebook that you'd buy from an individual EBay seller, however,
may have been used heavily for months, even years. And it may not have
been cleaned up and tested for defects, as Dell and other refurbished PC
sellers promise.
Generally speaking, the refurbished notebooks available from Dell and
other vendors aren't the latest and hottest models. But you can buy
refurbished computers that are still active members of a manufacturer's
product line.
For example, as of early April 2004, on Dell's Web site I found no
refurbished models of its Inspiron 9100 multimedia notebook, which had
been introduced two months earlier. However, the site was offering both
brand-new and refurbished models of its Inspiron 8600 multimedia notebook,
which came out in August 2003.
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