Most of my electronics were bought as refurbished, and I've never regretted it. It's surprising just how "new' a refurbished item can be at a substantial discount. And not once have I had a issues with refurbished items. (the keyboard issue for my last laptop didn't manifest until after ~6 years of use).
It's pretty bare bones, but the problem I was trying to fix was that it took me a long time to browse the Amazon Warehouse offers trying to find the best deals. Amazon doesn't make it easy since they don't show the new and used prices side by side if you search directly under the Amazon Warehouse category. There is also no way to sort by discount. I wasted many hours until one day I decided it was faster to spend a few weeks automating this process.
There are things I will NOT buy used/refurbished, such as hard drives (I always replace the drive in refurbished laptops and put the refurbished drive into secondary capacity).
The experience is even better now than It used to be. I remember buying an iMac a long time ago and it came in an ugly brown box that screamed "you bought this at a discount". My recent Macbook Air just has a tiny "refurbished by Apple" note on what is otherwise normal retail packaging.
For smaller devices I'll even use them as drawer organizers. They're so rugged!
A lot of walk-in places only seem to sell 8gb models with salespeople (falsely) claiming that 8gb is as good as 16 or 32gb on an x86 machine.
I bought a 13" rMBP in 2016 from the apple refurbished store, no packaging differences from brand new.
I imagine the quality varies depending on the third party who does the refurbishing.
The videos contain some colorful language.
Best Buy, et al refurbished units are not quite the same.
Third-party refurbishers would be a different ball game altogether.
The first was a an official refurb 2018 MacBook Pro which ended up having a burnt out touchbar and battery issues a year later.
The second was an official Amazon refurb kindle, which never reached even half the battery life of a new model.
This is of course anecdata (these issues could have occurred with brand new items as well), but I would love to see blackblaze style reliability data from companies who buy large numbers of refurb laptops vs new stock.
I’m curious if there’s a correlation.
I'm honestly blown away by the latest version, but what to wait to for the hype to die down and ensure there's no Quality issues with this years model as well. But it appears they may have taken a step back and instead of pushing aesthetics this year, they looked at what its users "want/need".
Why do you consider this to be a bad experience when it was clearly still under warranty and they replaced your topcase for free - brand new touchbar & battery & keyboard?
106 days exactly since its first release.
The first batch would be more for people who bought it to review it and return it.
But even with a 14 day return policy, Apple cant just turn around and sell this as new. I have seen a few open box items at Best Buy though, usually discounted ~$100 or so.
Also, for anyone considering an MBP, it appears Apple will again offer 6% back on Apple Store purchases over Black Friday/Cyber Monday. They had this deal last year, and it was offered to some folks (seemingly accidentally) last week. It was quickly removed, but they're apparently honoring it for anyone who got in under the wire.
Apple runs them through the manufacturing process again -- including testing and repackaging.
Apple have literally the BEST condition you can expect on any refurbished product on the market. But all other refurbishers (Gazelle, Mac of All trades, Amazon Warehouse, Decluttr...) grade them in a scale (A, B, C) based on their cosmetic condition and add a year warranty as well.
You're comparing 'refurbished Apple products' with 'Apple refurbished products'
Two very different things.
Refurbished Products <p>Covering answers and tips about refurbished Apple products in general. We break down the answers into sub-categories.</p>
This fucking machine caught FIRE while in my bed as I fell asleep.
Apple had the machine for TWO MONTHS in the flagship San Francisco Store.
After TWO MONTHS they told me that I could not have the machine replaced (it was under RECALL for battery incinerations) -- IT INCINERATED and caught fire. IN MY BED.
After spending TWO MONTHS at the flagship apple store they said they couldnt replace the machine because at "some point" the liquid sensors were set off... and they wouldnt replace it.
So a machine that was under recall for specifically a battery explosion/fire incident, which actually caught fire was denied the recall because a liquid trigger had been set off was denied.
it took Apple, TWO FUCKING MONTHS to come to this conclusion.
Fuck you Tim Apple
> It should be noted that Apple itself is unlikely to sell the new MacBook Pro as refurbished. As soon as it’s released.
This should be one sentence, at least to my ear.
I'm a refurb-first shopper/buyer and something I've noticed about Apple's refurbs is that they often maintain their from-new discount as if products released later (sometimes with lower price tags than the returb) don't exist.
Reviewing the store today, it looks like they are doing a somewhat better job of price models for refurbs but maintain a silly discount for things. Example: refurb XS at $550, "save $340." Claiming $340 is fictitious--a new 11 is $500. Maybe XS to 11 is not an apple-orange comparison but the price competitiveness of a new older model phone speaks to refurbs as not always being bargains.
I would've thought the new design would've meant more broken laptops sooner which (I would think) would mean quicker refurbished laptops.
