I am looking to buy 2 Macs, one for D2 and one for myself. D2’s school has a fairly generous school discount for Apple products (better than what Apple has for educational discount), and we can also get $200 for turning in our old laptop. I think the cost is going to be better than if we were to buy refurbished.
raclut - you may want to check with your kid’s school (I assume she is in college) bookstore for educational discount.
I have bought refurbished Macs and Dells and refurbished espresso/capuccino makers and probably other stuff as well. With the coffee makers, I only got a 30 day warranty but charged it on an Amex to get an extra year and in one case, bought their two or three year extended warranty. The net price was still hundreds of dollars less than new. We have had insurance on phones (e.g, Nexus 5 or iphone) and gotten refurbished ones when the original one had a problem. I can’t think of a situation where the refurbished product was bad, but we are generally dealing with good manufacturers and a reputable coffee machine place. I’m sure you could get shoddy work from the wrong suppliers.
Unless the refurbished product has the same/better warranty than the brand new product from the manufacturer or a seller who has a sterling reputation for warranty service or the product concerned is being sold at a substantial discount than typical*…I’d pass unless I can serve as my own tech support.
And even with the latter…that’s only provided the price charged is substantially lower than retail for used/refurbed products.
- Friend sent me two used laptops from his company for cost of shipping($25). Ended up selling both for nearly 20x what I paid and that included me providing a 6 month limited warranty for them. Neither customer had issues.