Refurb Store

ronnie3585

What are people's experience with buying from the refurb store?

I'm looking to buy a MBP and the one I'm looking at it almost 20% cheaper than off the shelf.

If they are refurbed by and warrantied by Apple are there any potential downfalls?

Mister Man

The refurb store is meant to be highly recommended by people.
Apple still give you warranty on the product (In your case the MBP)
The downfall to it, from what I hear, is they *CAN* be scratched or something cosmetic. I've heard many cases were they looked as if they had just came out of the factory, but the odd one or two will have a few scratches. I don't have experience with buying from the Refurb store, but it's what I've heard.
Hope that helps

Sad Professor

Yeah, there might be minor scratches and scuff marks, but people generally report getting what appears to be a brand new machine. You might also get a lemon that slipped past quality control and have to go to the hassle of returning it, but there's just as much chance of that happening with a new machine. Other than that it's all good. If you aren't happy send it back, order another one and enjoy the 20 percent off.

mikemac

I bought my imac there

Got better specs then I paid for, delighted
Just luck though, depends what's in stock the day the order comes in

ronnie3585

Thanks guys.

I wouldn't mind the odd scratch for 20% in my pocket.

whiterebel

My MBP was bought refurb, and was like a new machine. Bigger HD than advertised too. Well recommended. You can buy the APP extended warranty on it too.

Talisman

The warranty is the exact same as that on a product purchased from the retail store.

The major difference is it's shipped in a white box as opposed to in retail packaging.

You'll also find in the months before a product refresh that Apple dump built to order versions of existing products in the refurb store.

In my view the only reason not to buy a refurbished model is when what you want/need is not available on the refurb store.

padraig_f

Bought my Macbook from the refurb store a couple of years ago, and it's still going strong. For me, it was just like buying new (no scratches or scuff marks).

Sean Quagmire

Yea same here again, purchased re-furbed mbp. Not a single scratch or haze or anything. came wrapped up like new.

As someone said above me, you can be lucky and get an extra bit of ram or a bigger hard drive for the same cost.

cornbb

I've had a couple of refurb machines. Once out of the box (which are plain/unbranded unlike the boxes for "new new" machines) they were pristine, you wouldn't have been able to tell that they were refurbs.

Dont be at yourself

I bought a 27" iMac from the refurb store. Arrived in a brown cardboard box, but aside from that it was as-new. No scratches, scuffs, no dead pixels, it was (and still is!) good-as-new.

Talisman

I should have added to my post that the downside to ordering from the refurb store at this time is that you may not get the latest OS. More than likely the systems will ship with 10.6.x (presumably 10.6.7) if they were manufactured before the release of OS X Lion - it will have to be purchased through the App Store.

Sad Professor

Most refurbs should come with Lion installed at this stage. If they don't you can get it free via the Up-to-date programme.

motthead

Hey guys I've been looking at a few machines on the refurb store, I'm wondering do either of the machines at the following links have thunderbolt, no mention of it in the spec. Any ideas? Would this be a reason for them being cheaper?

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/FC371B/A?mco=MTgwOTc2ODA#overview

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/G0JK0B/A?mco=MjA2NTk4MDE

finno

motthead wrote: »

Hey guys I've been looking at a few machines on the refurb store, I'm wondering do either of the machines at the following links have thunderbolt, no mention of it in the spec. Any ideas? Would this be a reason for them being cheaper?

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/FC371B/A?mco=MTgwOTc2ODA#overview

http://store.apple.com/ie/product/G0JK0B/A?mco=MjA2NTk4MDE

No they don't have thunderbolt, I think thunderbolt came on all mac's on the mid 2011 range

motthead

If thats the case it might explain why everything on the refurb store seems like such good value, buying a mac without thunderbolt means its instantly outdated.

Paulw

motthead wrote: »

buying a mac without thunderbolt means its instantly outdated.

Yeah, because there are just so many thunderbolt devices out there ..... oh wait ... there's almost none. :rolleyes: An external disk array is about all there is. I think most people can live without thunderbolt for a few years to come.

With or without thunderbolt certainly wouldn't influence my decision to buy or not.

Sad Professor

Nearly everything is instantly outdated the minute you buy it. Things on the refurb store are cheaper because they are refurbished and in many cases previous generation models. Keep an eye on it and some of the newer models with Thunderbolt will show up, but the discount will be much lower. There's not a lot of uses for Thunderbolt at the moment anyway.

gerw88

I ordered a MBP a few weeks ago from the refurb store.

The first one was "Dead on arrival". Just unresponsive, and through no fault of my own. Apple don't have a policy of swapping products from the refurb store. The only option is the full refund. This can take 12 working days though, and if you are otherwise strapped for cash, you could be unable to book again until that clears. So you might want to be aware of that.

I'd be the first one to recommend using the refurb store, my own problem was in fact the first I had ever heard of. But that's the way, isn't it? The after-sales service was grand, and the deliveries were prompt with no unexpected delays. Grand except for not being able to replace like for like obviously, even if the exact same model/spec is in stock.

All the same, I have my Mac now, and it's working perfectly. So happy days.

motthead

Thanks for the advice lads, I'm just afraid that if I drop 1k+ now for something on the refurb store that in 6months the new apple stuff will all be working via thunderbolt.

Paulw

motthead wrote: »

Thanks for the advice lads, I'm just afraid that if I drop 1k+ now for something on the refurb store that in 6months the new apple stuff will all be working via thunderbolt.

Highly unlikely. Thunderbolt is so new that there are barely any devices out there for it.

Another point, thunderbolt is not an Apple thing, in fact it's an Intel development. So, if PC manufacturers take it on, the devices will soon flood the market. Until then, devices may trickle out from device makers, but I wouldn't be expecting to have lots of thunderbolt devices within the next year.

Besides, you still have two USB ports. And there are thousands of devices for USB. Just a shame Apple didn't put USB 3 ports there instead of USB 2.

finno

I bought an iMac 21.5 on the refub store and it has a thunderbolt port