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Send your apple refurb. stories here.

T

theipodgod16

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 10, 2003
379
57
Berkeley, CA
I've convinced my stepdad to buy a 12'' SD powerbook. He wasnt too happy about the $1800 subtotal though, so i found him a simliarly equipped model on the refurb. site for $1300.

Being as i've never bought a refurbished apple product before, has anyone else done so, either to posative or negative results? If you bought a refurbished product, will they tell you what was wrong with the machine before? are they usually just returns or dead HD's? or more major things such as dead pixels or busted drives? any imput would be helpful thanks.
 
i bought a refurb 1ghz combo powerbook from apples online store a few weeks ago and was a bit anxious about it being scratched or having dead pixels. but when i got the powerbook (48 hours later!!! i live in the uk!!!) it was perfect! no dead pixels or anything wrong with it at all and it had no scratches or marks anywhere on it at all, i went over it really closely and it was fine. granted its not the speediest thing in the world compared to my g5 but i didnt buy it to blitz through huge jobs. been meaning to stick an extra 512mb more ram in it though. my g5 has a slight, very slight mark on the front handle, as if something leant on it. so my refurb powerbook arrived in better condition than my new g5!! anyway i would always look at the refurb products before buying again and have convinced a few people to switch when they've seen how much cheaper they could get a mac at the refurb store. get it and enjoy!
 
thx. hes coming from a windows 98 machine, so any g4 will scream for him. He wont notice a 330 mz speed bump for what hes doing anyways, (GB, itunes), at least not for $500 worth. Thanks. he's gonna buy real soon
 
was your refurb a cancom refurb or an apple refurb. the cancom refurbs are refurbished by the goons in the shops but the apple ones are refurbished back at apple and come with a full apple waranty. i think the cancom refurbs only come with 90 days warranty or six months? something like that. either way i would trust apple more than cancom, they just seem to want to sell you stuff even if its not the best option for you. thats my opinion from what ive seen in the brighton branch, of course i cant comment on the other stores around the country, they might be brilliant!

anyway my point is if you buy direct from apple, then if you dont like it (because its got a huge scratch down it or something) then you just have to pay apple £40 to send it back and if its dead on arrival then they'll send you another one for free.

some people complain about refurb products, and fairplay to them because thats been their experience and they should let people know what happened to advise others.

But remember that not everybody posts on forums and says how good something was either, most people turn to forums like this when they have problems and thats why you read lots of complaints and bad stuff.

is...

the money you save worth the risk that it might be imperfect?
 
£550 refurb 600MHz g3 16 meg vram bought 2 years ago works to this day when it came it had obiously been used as the case had those tink scratches that ibooks get but you get those from normal use anyway so i did not mind still works to this day.

(I buy all my macs refurbed)
 
I bought my mom a refurb eMac 1GHz for $599 from the Apple Site. It has no CDRW, but that was ok because she would never burn cds. It arrived in near-perfect condition, just some verrrryyy slight scratches, which may arrive with new emacs too, the case is extremely easy to scratch. My only gripe was that they failed to provide the software CDs for world book, etc. Granted, all the software is already on the machine, but it would have been nice to have the copies as well. For the price, though, I'm very impressed.

Even more, after a credit card mixup on the phone, they gave me free overnight shipping! I had it the next day. So, I would definately reccomend it. There is just no reason to buy new; refurb products come with the same warranty and are eligible for applecare.
 
yes they will

if the product did not originaly ship with panther it will ship with update cd's
 
I just bought a Refurb dual 2.0 g5. Seemed like a better deal compared to the dual 1.8 new low end, for the same price.

I just hope they got all the kinks worked out, like sound issues and ps whining, etc.

I will post here how it goes once I get it?!?! :)
 
Four Apple refurbs to date: a G4 iMac, iPod, 17" flat panel and a G3 B&W. No problems with any to date. I've come to believe that some of the products listed at the Apple Online Store are not refurbished at all but are overstocks. I've had more problems with new products from Apple.
 
refurbished good and bad.

My current machine is a 12 inch 867 powerbook. I got it refurbished and it rocks. NO Problems whatsoever. I bought my first computer, a crt imac refurbished and it was two months of problems. The problem was a bad mouse and keyboard. Weird. It was computer hell.
 
I bought a refurb 700mhz iBook in November. When it arrived, the dc board was unplugged, so it had to be sent back immediately. That was 8 months ago and itr hasnt had any problems since. Also, it was in oerfect condition when I recieved it.
 
I have a 17" iMac refurb. Here is the link to the thread that describes my story. I never posted my final thoughts on my refurb, but everything has been great about this second iMac...no problems, mint condition, etc. Even though I had issues with mine, Apple took care of me and got me what I wanted with not too much hassle. Heck an hour or two to save over $500 is worth it...and most of the time there is no hassle!
It seemed as if there was a batch of refurb. that all came though the system around the same time period last year that never got refurb. all the way...have not heard much lately about negative refurb. stories. I would also rec. searching the forum on this site for refurb. threads to get more info.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/39445/

Good Luck!
 
I bought from the Apple Store a refurb PM 867 & a refurb 15" LCD - both still great and going strong!
 
working for your money

I tend to think about the money you save buying a refurbished in terms of what you are willing to work to get a possible flawed product working again. Is the money you save worth the possible effort you might have to make with Applecare in order to get a working product? I think so.
 
Refurbed doesn't necessarily mean used. Lots of refurbs are products returned because their owners didn't want it. Apple then inspects the product to make sure it meets their standards and then lists it as refurb. Refurb products are good, usually from any company.
 
I've purchased (for myself, friend and family) quite a few items from Apple refurb and never a problem. To date, iMac, iBook, AP Base Station, Airport card, 17" LCD, iPod and AE card. Most of the product appeared brand new.
 
I bought a 667 tibook for a great price from the uk refurb store.

The hinge was out of alignment and so i rang apple - they said that this was because it was a refurb - i could return it if i wanted.( I didn't - couldn't bare to see it go LOL)

I've had it now for about 2 years and it's still going strong - some serious paint peel tho.
 
I got my AE Base station and a AE card from the refurb store and both were trouble free-- we also got a Dual G4 1.25 minitower here at work from the refurb store and it appeared brand new, aside from shipping in a brown refurb-box. On the other hand, I bought a brand-new iBook G4 back in January, NOT a refurb, and had to replace the RAM, Hard Drive and Logic Board over a period of 2 months. Needless to say, I am a huge fan of the Apple refurb store!!!!
 
The last iBook I bought was refurbished - I think.
It was an iBook that someone brought back in the 10 days thing. So it was like $100 off or so. It has a burned out pixel, which is prolly why they brought it back. I don't mind it so much. It's a nice solid computer with no other marks, dings, or scratches.
 
My wife and I have had several refurb iPods.....our 40GB and 20GB 3G's that we use now are refurbs and they are great. Also I bought a 1GHz 17" PowerBook refurb in March. I had battery problems and then logic board problems within a month....but I think this may be more than common in these models regardless of whether it is new or refurbished. I sent it in for repair. They issued me a free 512MB stick of RAM d/t me having several problems in the first month. But they were short in supply to repair the logic boards....so after 4 weeks and me calling them to complain (about the time it was taking.....not about the service because everyone I spoke with was always nice and helpful) they sent me a NEW 1.33GHz 17" PowerBook. So I ended up getting a brand new $3000 dollar PowerBook and a $300 512MB stick of RAM (that's the cost from Apple) for the cost of of a refurb 1GHz 17" PowerBook (it was $2199 at the time). Not to say they do this all the time but these are my refurbished experiences. Also, only once out of the 4 iPods and 1 PowerBook (that I've bought refurbished) did I actually get the normal Apple packaging for the product (on a 2G 20GB iPod).....all other times I've received the brown Apple reconditioned box.
All of the refurbs I've received have looked brand new.....no marks or dirt on them. One more thing: I upgraded my 15" iMac G4 to a 17" iMac G4 last February ('03) and within a year I had to have the Superdrive replaced and the LCD screen replaced (which I was glad of b/c it originally had 3 dead/stuck pixels on it and now it's perfect).....but this was a machine that was bought NEW. In my experience you're just as likely to have a problem with a new product as a refurbished product......and neither are very likely. I've had lots of Apple products and the iMac, the PowerBook, and my 2G 20GB iPod (I broke the headphone port and they fixed it for me under AppleCare) are the only times I've ever had any problems.
 
software with refurbs?

What's been the experience here with receiving bundled software on refurb macs directly from Apple - powerbooks in particular? Do they really just ship with the OS, or does the other usual software at least come installed (if not included on CD)? I'm strongly looking at buying one, but don't want to have to hunt down iLife etc. separately... thanks much!
 
the powerbook i got a couple of weeks ago came with the panther update cds and also iLife 04 in a separate little bag thing. with cds and an intro manual. hope that helps
 
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