product reaching refurbished status

[KD7IWP]

Hi, I'm a new switcher and have not purchased a Mac yet but will buy a 15" Superdrive before summer ends before I'm off to college. Does anyone know the approximate average length of time it takes until a new product becomes listed on the Apple refurbished site? I have been looking at using ADC but was called from Apple yesterday and told that I must be taking classes to enroll and that would mean I can not sign up until I am already in school which would be too late to purchase a powerbook since I will need it before summer ends to learn the OS. So I changed my mind and decided to go for refurbished since it is still much cheaper than the ADC discount would be.
Does anyone else recommend this? If powerbook updates do happen this month or next, do you think those changes would make it to the refurbished site before September? My guess is no, but who am I to say? A refurbished product would be just as good right, seems how I can get the same Applecare. Are they returnable if they have a few scratches? Thank you so much.

 

[flyfish29]

Refurb. are great. I have a 17" iMac that is great, however it took me two tries. Some others have had great success with refurb, and some have had problems. do a search in the forums here about refurb and refurbished and see what comes up. There have been several threads about this topic and the problems people had.

One the the best things to do is wait til an update comes out, then buy the model they just updated from for quite a bit off. You will find those either brand new on the apple "deals and refurb." page or at some other retailer or e-tailer. That is what I did with my iMac and saved $500 buying the refurb. I looked over the updated mac when I bought it and decieded if the update was really worth $500. I decided not, so I thought I could save the $500 and use it towards my next mac a couple of years down the road and be able to upgrade to a far superior machine in two years time instead of getting a nominal upgrade for almost 1/3 of the overall price of the machine. Does this make sense. In other words, by saving the $500 on this computer I will be able to hopefully afford to buy that new G5 or G6 iMac in two years instead of three!?!?

Good luck figuring it all out.

 

[denm316]

Hi, I'm a new switcher and have not purchased a Mac yet but will buy a 15" Superdrive before summer ends before I'm off to college. Does anyone know the approximate average length of time it takes until a new product becomes listed on the Apple refurbished site? I have been looking at using ADC but was called from Apple yesterday and told that I must be taking classes to enroll and that would mean I can not sign up until I am already in school which would be too late to purchase a powerbook since I will need it before summer ends to learn the OS. So I changed my mind and decided to go for refurbished since it is still much cheaper than the ADC discount would be.
Does anyone else recommend this? If powerbook updates do happen this month or next, do you think those changes would make it to the refurbished site before September? My guess is no, but who am I to say? A refurbished product would be just as good right, seems how I can get the same Applecare. Are they returnable if they have a few scratches? Thank you so much.

I am looking to buy the 15 inch 1.25 SuperDrive Refurb in the next couple of days. The refurb price on these just went down to $1999.00, I am just waiting to see if they update the powerbook in the next few days becuase then hopefully the refurb price will drop another $100 or so.

-Dennis

 

[tristan]

FYI, other good places to get a refurb (besides the apple store) are powermax and smalldog. You save on sales tax too.

Oh, and best time to buy a refurb is right after an apple line update - like a few weeks after. Then you get the old model (that used to be top of the line) as a refurb, and save a fortune. But good luck timing that - who can predict an apple update?

 

[tsk]

So I changed my mind and decided to go for refurbished since it is still much cheaper than the ADC discount would be.

Is that true? I thought ADC was a fair bit cheaper than the refurbs.

Aside from issues of price I wouldn't have any issues on the refurbs. Same warranty and all. I guess the only place I would think a little is on the iBook since I suspect they are more likely to be scratched.