hey there,
glad to see you wanna go with the best music player out there
normally refurbished products have a new case (at least the iPods) and are in a like-new condition. with my refurbished iPod, only the electronics had beed used before.
Anyways, the difference between a current nano and a refurbished one is only 50 bucks more and apple is using the refurb option as well as the "back to school" promo for clearing out inventory of old iPods since new ones are going to be released anytime soon. better tie your hands and hold on till next week/1st week of September. if you will not like the nano 6g, head out for best buy or another electronics store and fetch a new nano 5g for 99$/99. thats what happened to last years nano. got mine for 89.
Regards,
Baguette