Refurbished laptop - would you buy one?

Dell outlet kicks ass, highly recomended. My dell Vostro 1510 I got from them, the 1 year next day on site repairs is amazing. Any problem the next working day someone comes to fix it. lol. Beat that.
I had my keyboard replaced the other day as 1 then 2 of my keys had popped off. I got a whole new motherboard in the process as the new keyboard needed the new mobo?
Anyway Dell outlet is good.
 
jmc007 said:
Anyway Dell outlet is good.
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Do you consider their prices good? When I've looked on there, and I just looked again now, it seems little different to the cost of the same item new.

eg. £607 incl. VAT for a Dell Inspiron 1525, seems steep to me.
 
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We sell refurbished laptops.
People are willing to save what is basically £100 sacrificing warranty and even battery life and actually get a far inferior machine.
To be fair though a 5 year old centrino or P4 laptop can surf just about as well as a brand new laptop bottom end laptop.
And definitely better than the ones with celerons and tons of bloatware installed.

Plus older laptops that are popular in the refurbished market like the IBM T41's are built far better and are more solid than the bottom of the range HP's, Dells and Acers.
 
Bought a "refurbished" Dell XPS M170 lappy from eBay last year as a little LAN machine.

All worked fine and I was happy as larry.

One day I decided to give it a good seeing to (clean) so cracked it all open.
I soon found out that the reason it needed to be refurbished was the original owner had dumped a whole pot of coffee into it.
Everything was stuck to everything!

Everything still works fine, but the keyboard was sticky as hell (have now replaced and it's lovely :D).
Most of the buttons/catches on it are still sticky and are a bugger to move now and then.

I recently bought a replacement palmwrest/touchpad assembly which I'll get round to installing at some point. That should get rid of most of the sticky buttons (left click and media buttons being the important ones).



In the end it's basically pot luck, you could get one that is "as new", or you could get a coffee-pot.
:)
 
Why don't they just call a spade a spade, and call these 'refurbished' machines 'secondhand'? The only 'refurbishing' that gets done is a quick wipe with a damp cloth I am sure.
 
dirtydog said:
Short or no warranty, it's been used so will probably be in less than perfect cosmetic condition and will be more likely to go wrong than a new one.
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If it's factory reconditioned you usually get a full warranty, re cased and checked.

Yes I would and I have done on other products. They come like new, you wouldn't be able to tell they are 2nd hand.

dirtydog said:
Why don't they just call a spade a spade, and call these 'refurbished' machines 'secondhand'? The only 'refurbishing' that gets done is a quick wipe with a damp cloth I am sure.
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because that's not what happens. (factory refurbished) is like new and they really are like new.
 
dirtydog said:
Along with a 'like new' price, if Dell Outlet is anything to go by.
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Depends what you get. but got stuff at exceptionally good prices far below new cost.

Got phones, printers, tv's. it's a great way to buy.

for example looking at getting a fuji camera.
F100fd refurbished from fuji website £124 from Tesco £196
 
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AcidHell2 said:
Depends what you get. but got stuff at exceptionally good prices far below new cost.

Got phones, printers, tv's. it's a great way to buy.
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Look at the prices on Dell Outlet, like the £600 laptop I mentioned in an earlier post :) I am not opposed to (properly) refurbished items at all, far from it, provided that there is a significant discount in the price to account for the item not being new.
 
no way. but tbh i wouldnt buy a new laptop for anything over the price o the refurb. too much goes wrong with laptops and its impossible to fix yourself (most o the time). pcs are tempermental enough without cramming the parts together in a sauna thats too small for them (but thats just my oppinion)
 
wupwup said:
no way. but tbh i wouldnt buy a new laptop for anything over the price o the refurb. too much goes wrong with laptops and its impossible to fix yourself (most o the time). pcs are tempermental enough without cramming the parts together in a sauna thats too small for them (but thats just my oppinion)
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My pc isnt very tempermental, its just the things i do to it at times that make it tempermental :p

i have fixed a few laptops, you can fix a laptop yourself, all the instructions for taking laptops apart and back together are out there on the net, and its more then likely that you will be able to find parts for a laptop from a popular auction site for not so much money. laptops arent as hard to fix as everyone makes out. saying that i dont think i would get another But thats simply cause they dont interest me and i no longer see the point, though netbooks look interesting.

to answer op it's really upto you, if the listing says it works and stuff or depending on what the listing says then the item has to do as listed if not get your money back. i have bought em before and they have been fine. i guess it all comes down to price and if you think it's worth a go :)
 
My first laptop was a refurbished Compaq Armada M700. 700Mhz PIII that ran nicely for just over two and a half years, then it wouldn't run from the AC Adapter, just the battery (it would keep rebooting). My guess is that the orginal fault returned. In the case of your machine, be careful, especially off that auction site. My one was a nice little machine when it worked for a good price.
 
dirtydog said:
I didn't think upgrading RAM voided your warranty on laptops?

Not sure I'd buy something used and with half the warranty just to save a piddling £60 personally.
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Slow reaction, but £60 isn't piddling to everyone. We're not all made of money even if you are. Plus, you can buy extended warranty for far, far less than £60. Common sense! Not that i would. i care little for warranty.

£60 off a £200 netbook is a good enough discount for me. Anything that goes wrong with it, i'm competent enough to replace the parts myself, i have a good source for spares that dont cost much at all.

Presumably on a netbook it does void warranty, as it means removing 16 screws with the little blue marks on, removing the HDD, Motherboard, Wifi card, secondary PCB, keyboard and casing to do it. It's not a case of just opening the handy flap on the back and slotting it in.
 
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I did - from the bay - been using it for a year now and no problems, also if its a Dell they normally come with the extended warranty (if it's from one of the 'Shops') - so you're covered anyway.
 
My M1530 was a Refurb from 'the' outlet. I've had it for 16 months now and no issues, really pleased with my purchase.
 
refurbished units include faulty and returned items.

The faulty ones are generally fixed and resold, ones that have been returned are visually inspected, tested and then resold.

Hence you have a chance of a duffer if its returned after spilling coffee into it and been cleaned externally.
 
Recently fixed a refurbished laptop for a friend and retrieved some digital photos after a crash - turned out that the previous owner had a penchant for pregnant asian ladies :eek:
Make sure you're happy with the people doing the refurb!
 
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