I’ve purchased several refurb mp3 players (mostly Sansa) with no problems. I’ve generally had good luck, but I probably wouldn’t go refurb on a pacemaker, parachute, kevlar vest, or the like.
I think a lot depends on who is making the claim of refurbishment. Factory refurbishment carried out by the manufacturer or the manufacturer’s authorised repairer ought to be fairly good, but there are a heck of a lot of less rigorous claims out there - for example, on eBay, ‘refurbished’ quite often simply means ‘second hand’ - and no serious refurbishment or servicing will have been performed.
I’ve been touting the very cheap refurbished 17" Dell Vostro notebook that I bought. After it was out of warranty, there has been a subtle but well documented problem with the track pad going skeevy. It starts jumping around randomly. I just unplug the power supply and the problem goes away.
I suspect that this may have been the reason that this notebook was originally returned. It’s irritating, but not that big of a deal, fortunately. However, it would really suck if the touchpad would irreparably go south after the warranty. I’m hoping that this defect does not worsen with time.
Generally I’m happy to buy refurbished.
Sometimes I’ll be researching a product and find a lot of user reviews complaining about reliability… and I’ll notice that the item is widely available as a refurb. I go ahead and buy it, because I figure the manufacturer solved the issue and repaired all the returned items.
No problems there.
My only bad refurb experience was buying a Ryobi cordless drill from a retail chain that features an endless supply of refurbished Ryobi products. The ni-cad batteries turned out to be on death’s door.
OTOH, I read a lot of reviews complaining about the lithium battery in a certain Logitech iPod speaker, and went ahead a bought a refurb. No problems. It seemed likely that Logitech had replaced the bad batteries with good ones.
I completely trust Apple refurbs.
4 of our 5 appliances are refurbished/returned to manufacturer items, all decently high end, or at least, not low end (the 5th, the dishwasher, was an obsolete model).
Oven: returned to manufacturer because of a dent on the side panel (50% discount)
Washer: returned to manufacturer because of a dent on each of the side panels (50% discount)
Dryer (matching, actually): refurbished - Had been sold new, plugged in, it didn’t work, was returned and this store took it to sell. They replaced the power plug, which had been damaged, and couldn’t sell it as “new” as a result (50% discount)
Fridge: returned to manufacturer because of a dent on the side and one on the door. (60% discount)
And the dishwasher was about 40% off, I think.
We got a 5 year parts and 1 year service warranty with them. We’ve had them for two years, and have no problems whatsoever. I’d recommend that store to anyone in Montreal looking for a deal.
Refurb rules to live by:
Anything with less than a 90-day warranty is a no-deal.
Anything that doesn’t say “factory refurb” is either just used or repaired by someone who may not be qualified.
Usually non-factory refurbs will have 30 days or no days of warranty and are “Buyer Beware”
The above are in my experience and are the criteria I use to purchase refurbs, so far:
Home computer from Geeks.com $200 (new $650)
Wireless keyboard and mouse for home and work from Geeks.com: $25 ea (new $50)
Denon upconverting to 1080p DVD player from eCost.com: $59 (new $175)
BlackJack smartphone from AT&T: $50 (new $250)
Significant savings!
All of these came in either original packaging or in a box from the manufacturer that specified it was a factory refurb, and all were 90 days or more warranties.
You have to be really careful about the wording and be willing to pass it up if the keys aren’t there.