One can buy reconditioned laptops and desk tops directly from the manufacturer ------such as from IBM,DELL, Compaq etc.
I would like to hear from anyone who has owned,or regularly used,one of those machines.
I am intertested in their dependability,longevity etc.
I ask that this NOT be turned into a forum of opinions on New vs Rebuilt!
The quesion arises from the probability that I may need to provide a machine for a shut-in whose prime imterest lies in the internet and random information seeking.
A friend once remarked that Apple’s “refurbishing” consisted of “wiping it carefully with a damp rag before sending it off to the next schlub”.
On the other hand, i have a number of (college) students who’ve bought “refurbs” from Apple, Dell, et al who’ve gotten great computers at great prices.
There are also resellers who do an excellent job of refurbing – smalldog.com comes to mind.
“…Internet and random information seeking” wouldn’t tax a machine much – an older machine would do well.
I can’t vouch for the overall quality of refurbished products, but I will tell you this: DON’T BUY COMPAQ! I’ve owned 3 of their computers (yes, took me that long to catch on) and they are the shittiest computers in existence.
i bought a refurbished dell laptop and it works great. the only problem i had was getting windows 2k working properly. finally had to have some kids at the local university set it up for me. otherwise it has been great. you can buy refurbished dells on ebay or directly from dell financial services.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Three advantages that new has over refurb are availability of parts, service and support. Aside from that,I can’t think of anything.
- I've never bought a refurb laptop, because parts for laptops generally aren't available as soon as 2-3 years after the end of sales. It's a near-guarantee that you can't get new parts or service for a 5-yr old laptop anywhere. -If one can't afford much, I'd suggest a new or refurb generic low-end desktop system over a used laptop--the prices are about the same, and the desktop uses parts that are standardized and widely available, and will continue to be for at least 5 years, even if the original manufacturer ceases to exist.
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The thing with refurbished computers is that they can be a serious crapshoot. Any computer that comes back to the seller for technical difficulties has to be “refurbished.” A decent amount of time the system is fine, with just, maybe, a soundcard that didn’t work. Sometimes nothing is wrong with it. Other times, though, you get the chipset from hell, and you will have many frustrating problems.
I bought a refurbished desktop from HP about 3 years ago. It was a pavilion something-or-other (9860c?).
I had no problems with it at all for over 2 years.
After that, certain parts began to go bad (but I do treat my systems pretty hard, so I don’t think that 2 years is really that short a time). The secondary case fan power out on the motherboard died. About 6 months later, the motherboard died. I ended up getting an ECS board with an AMD chip for my next board, so I can’t vouch for how the proc would work, but I know due to testing that it did continue to work after the motherboard died. The DVD drive still works… sort of. It will not read CDRs, and sometimes has trouble recognizing CDs when I put them in. Usually ejecting the cd and reinserting it will fix this. More importantly, though, it no longer reads DVD’s fast enough to actually play the movies in realtime.
The CDRW drive still works wonderfully.
The hard drive is still functioning (and I work hard drives really hard.
The soundcard still worked last time I checked (I have on-board sound in my new box)
The monitor worked until I sold it about 6 months ago.
The video card worked until I realized that it was sucky and upgraded it.
Overall, I’d say that it was a decent purchase at the time, but I also got a decent discount on it (beyond the normal refurb discount) because my father works for HP.
Make sure that the warranty for all the parts is at least 3 months. Anything that makes it that long is unlikely to have an otherwise short life. Bottom line: Odds are that a refurbished comp will be a good deal. If you get that one that just sucks it up, though, realize that it’s just the law of averages playing itself out, and don’t let tech support rest until they replace it.