Can you assure me refurbished iPhones are good?

[mario.jr]

My iphone 4 is about to be replaced by "new" one ( its still in warranty).
Is there any way to know if its a new phone or a refurbished when I receive it ??

Thanks!

 

[aristobrat]

Visibly, I don't know of a way. Replacements (either new or refurb) come from the same reusable boxes Apple puts spare parts in.

At one point you could tell by the serial number but not sure if anyone figured out the iPhone 4 code.

 

[diamond.g]

I thought we figured out that the rebfurbs start with a different number then the NIB units?

In anycase my wife had an issue with her iPhone (NIB) and we got a refurb, it stopped working that night and we got another replacement that next day no questions asked.

This one seems fine (I went ahead and got AC on both phones since I have no plans to upgrade).

 

[spiderman0616]

I have never had a good refurb. My first one had a dead pixel, second and third one had pretty significant cosmetic damage. 4th one had a faulty home button. I finally got tired of arguing with the Apple store and called AppleCare. They set me up with a brand new out of the box iPhone 4 (which did have a tiny little mark on the antenna band, but nothing significant). Call AppleCare and make a stink. They will help you.

 

[EvilEvil]

General rule of life, never buy refurbished electronics.

 

[miabadboys]

Wow, 6 replacement iphone4 ??? Seeing some of your stories of bad referb hardware is scary. I have taken back quite a few items under warranty and even some that might have been my fault for the product not working. I have had no problems what so ever taking hardware back to Apple store and getting a working product. I dont know any other company as good as Apple when it comes to replacing hardware. All the replacements i have got looks and works as good as new.