refurb ipad advice

kelk72

thinking of buying a refurbished iPad 2 with Wi-Fi 32GB - Black (2nd generation) £279 i had a 10inch android tablet bought off ebay last year and its died on me took it to a it repair shop and they cant fix it and just out of warranty too damn it, i only want it for using in the house using wifi surfing reading emails skype etc no gaming or downloading music etc i cant afford a later model. Is this a good buy? Thankyou.

securityguy

The risk with buying any "old" equipment is that the software support can get cut off, and Apple are sods for doing that for machines that didn't sell in vast quantities (the iPad 1 got chopped off very young, as did the early Intel Mac Minis).

However, on machines that sold better, or have close genetic links to yet more recent machines, the software support goes on much longer. I'm typing from a 2007 iMac which I updated last night to the latest OSX (10.9.3) , because there are a lot of 2007 iMacs and they're pretty similar to the more recent models, so it's no effort (and a lot of potential good will) for Apple to keep them current.

The iPad 2 hasn't been sold for a while. But it is essentially an iPhone 4S in a fat suit, and the iPhone 4S is still (just about) being sold new. It's also the case that the differences between the A5X processor in the iPad 3 and the A5 processor in the iPad 2 aren't significant enough to make it difficult to maintain the operating system, and perfomance-wise there's not a huge amount in it (there are other differences, but the iPad 3 is really only a high-res iPad 2). So I would guess that the iPad 2 will be good for software updates for five years, which makes it a reasonable buy.

For your use, the 32GB is overkill, however, so if they have some refurbs with less memory in, save some money and spend it on a nice case or something.

swvillafan

The iPad 2 is still a good tablet. If you are not using it for gaming / music why not go for the 16gb model @ £219? Save's you a bit of money. Thats the one we have and is more than adequate!

kelk72

thankyou both for your advice think i will go for the cheaper 16gb as its really for surfing/emails etc and keeping in touch with family when on holiday using wifi .

Maddy25

If you want better speed like for Skype etc and more longevity, I suggest the latest iPad Air 16GB:

£310 from trusted seller on eBay plus 1 year Apple Warranty

or £320 sealed (from eBay).

Only £100ish more and more future proof and a big difference in speed.

I upgraded from iPad 2 to iPad Air in January and the difference was very noticeable, which isn't often the case if you were to only upgrade by one generation say.