Refurbished laptops/notebooks worth the risk

Rufty1

I am looking for a laptop as cost efficiently as possibly. A few I was looking at have gone up in price recently. I am wondering if they might come down again before Christmas, if not I might wait until later. Or I was wondering about refurbed machines. Are they worth the risk? What should I look out for? Many thanks.

MercilessKiller

They are worth the risk as there's no risk! You still get warranty

A lot of them are simply laptops returned as the customer didn't want it or some other silly reason.

However, prices are getting so cheap now for new laptops it may be that you can find something new for the same price!!

NiftyDigits

Medion Akoya E6234/MD98409 £180.49 Grade A

Grade B+ £170.49

MEDION® AKOYA® E6234 (MD 98409)

Full twelve month warranty.

John_Gray

Sadly the first two links point to Out of Stock laptops...

NiftyDigits

John_Gray wrote: »

Sadly the first two links point to Out of Stock laptops...

*

They weren't 'Out of Stock' when I posted them.

Buster_Danog

I have purchased two refurbished computers from Dell. In both cases they either had faults or or a slight dent that was not mentioned. The biggest risk is wasting your time as they do not seem to check them properly before selling them on. You should check the period you get to return the computer and how much you might have to pay for postage.

The warranty on its own would be a hassle if you ended up with something that had faults but were unable to return it.

A._Badger

Dell's factory outlet has some fantastic bargains. You need to watch it for a week or so and be ready to act fast when the machine you want comes on offer. There are no risks, AFAICS, in fact the warranty I got on mine worked out better than the standard Dell offering and the machine has been flawless.

NiftyDigits

Sergeant_Troy wrote: »

I have purchased two refurbished computers from Dell. In both cases they either had faults or or a slight dent that was not mentioned. The biggest risk is wasting your time as they do not seem to check them properly before selling them on. You should check the period you get to return the computer and how much you might have to pay for postage.

The warranty on its own would be a hassle if you ended up with something that had faults but were unable to return it.

Find this hard to believe. If it had a dent, it would be sold as 'Scratch & Dent'.
Perhaps you didn't buy it from DELL after all....or maybe you didn't read the description.

Big_Graeme

SVP has some decent Lenovo i5 Thinkpads for around the £200 mark, they are not gonna win any bonny baby contests but for the money they are decent machines.

Rufty1

Thanks I'll have a look at Dell and other such factory outlets.
Sorry - who / what are SVP? Excuse my ignorance.
Thanks

Strider590

All my laptops have been refurbs, the first one an IBM 770X (1998) still works now, but doesn't have the HDD capacity to be any use these days. My other two are IBM T41's, one has been running permanently since 2006 as an FTP (and other stuff) server, the other is now running as a CCTV system (after my neighbour started going batsh1t crazy).

Refurbed business grade machines are a really sound investment, but consumer grade tat is little more than a ticking time bomb.