Benefits of refurbished laptops/phones etc

mickeymouse303

Found this really interesting article about how we should be thinking about choosing refurbished equipment instead of always buying new (you can read it here).

What are people's thoughts on this? Electronic waste isn't something I've even thought about until recently

pappa_golf

refurbished , or simple returns with damaged packaging , that have just had a system reset?

many high st stores do this via ebay etc

[Deleted User]

mickeymouse303 wrote: »

Found this really interesting article about how we should be thinking about choosing refurbished equipment instead of always buying new (you can read it here).

What are people's thoughts on this? Electronic waste isn't something I've even thought about until recently

Most recycling is a myth. Considering the amount of energy and resources that go into recycling and that's if it doesn't just end up in the ocean anyway.

What we need to do is stop making stuff we don't need in the first place like plastic packaging.

For far too long has the industry boasted about it being recyclable or made from recycled materials like "yay lets make some more because it's ok init".

John_Gray

It's something of a 'lifestyle' choice - do you want the newest shiny shiny at a premium price, or are you happy with second-hand in good condition? For cars, it's especially obvious since as soon as the new car leaves the showroom it depreciates rapidly and significantly.

The charity I'm familiar with can't afford new desktops and laptops, and so we get second-hand business models at (much) less than half the original new price. We don't need much power to do Word, Excel and browse, so a three-year-old box works fine and should last for quite a number of years. (The oldest PC we have dates from 2006!)

fwor

As pappa golf says - the problem is that often a "refurbished" laptop or PC will have been bought at auction as a big job lot of customer returns, and the people who "refurbish" do not a lot more than turn them on and confirm that they boot up.

Much of the time this works OK because in many cases the "fault" was just the original customer's incompetence. But... if there really is an intermittent fault, the "refurbishing" is very unlikely to find it.

I've bought lots of "refurbished" items before, and at a rough guess I would say that probably 10-20% has had to go back as faulty (always with a fault that only appears after has been used for a while).

I should add that if you can find items that genuinely have been refurbished by the manufacturer you are unlikely to have such problems - they will have soak tested the item, because they have their own reputation at stake...

Inner_Zone

I purchased a used motherboard from PCW a few years ago (yes I know), had an very intermittent fault, do not why it was returned so may or may not be the same issue. Ended up buying a new one elsewhere, so probably paid over the odds on the two purchases.

Personally I either give away what I know to be working to family or offer it on Freecycle, faulty items to to the local council site where they collect electrical / electronic items supposedly for recycling.

GunJack

The vast majority of people just don't need the fastest, newest, shiniest tech stuff....e.g. my current desktop and that of my 70-odd-y-o parents and in-laws are all s-h/refurbs from ebay, average cost £35...perfectly serviceable machines looked after by me.

None of us use them for gaming, high-end video, etc. so to buy something like our oldest got last year (gaming rig that should be good for a fair few years) at £800-odd would be a total waste...most people either:-

1. overestimate what they're going to use it for
2. get taken in by salespeople (PCW I'm lookng at you...) or
3. have some pathological "need" to have the newest, fastest, shiniest stuff...

GunJack

Actually, from the article, the data requirement over the next 2 years wll be bigger than everything to date, is not so much driven by the consumer, but by the data companies themselves. ...

Surely it would be better NOT to collect so much data in the first place, then you don't need to store it

Let's face it, for example, why does a Poker app need access to your camera, pictures, wifi connection etc. on your phone/tablet...it's got F**k-all to do with Poker.....

I for one wouldn't object to having all my phone/pc/etc. NOT collected and stored by the likes of google et. al., whilst doing my bit to save Earth's resources

motorguy

mickeymouse303 wrote: »

Found this really interesting article about how we should be thinking about choosing refurbished equipment instead of always buying new (you can read it here).

What are people's thoughts on this? Electronic waste isn't something I've even thought about until recently

Nothing wrong with buying used. Quite a big market out there for it.

I've two laptops and a desktop machine. The main laptop is a very light but not overly expensive HP machine with SSD and an i7.

The secondary laptop is an 8 year old first gen i3, 8GB RAM and a 240GB SSD. Other than weight its perfectly acceptable. I gave £120 for it.

The desktop machine is an ex business i5, 8GB RAM and a 500GB SSD. I gave £80 for it plus the price of the SSD.

New variants would no doubt have cost me £,£££.

I've a new phone, but buying a good used or chinese phone wouldnt bother me, if i could get the spec i wanted.