Today’s question is –should I buy a refurbished computer?

It could be a laptop or it could be a desktop or in general. I am going to start off with my general recommendation would be no. I am not fund of refurbished computers and there are exceptions and there is different reasons why. Number 1 a refurnished computer has there are many terminologies depending on who is selling it. Refurbished can be something fairly new, that something got changed and fixed. Some people are selling what is kind of off lease computers. It’s really a computer that got leased to a company for 3, 4, 5 years. Who knows whatever the term is. And then at the end of that the computer who did the leasing gets it back. Then it gets resold and maybe cleaned up and reconditioned but that’s really an old computer cleaned up.

The major problem with that is the hard drive.

The hard drive is where all your information is, where the operating system lies. Pretty much all the important stuff is there and you definitely don’t want a refurbished hard drive. If you listen to any of the experts in the field of hard drives and that question has been asked. What about refurbished hard drive? They flat out, I mean they are trash. You do not want all your important information on a refurbished trash hard drive. So that’s a really serious consideration right there. The other part is generally your refurbished computers you are going to have probably a 90 day warranty. That’s for a reason and not given you the full 1 year warranty, so it is a general rule though.

There may be some exception. For example, if you are buying a refurbished unit from the manufacturers themselves. Maybe Apple, maybe Dell that would possibly be worth considering. I would take a look at the warranty they are providing. Then I would also take a look at the model. How old is it? Is it a new model like came out six months ago and it is refurbished? So that is going to tell us something that’s new that just got fixed. Or, is this a two year old model that’s refurbished? Big difference, you can see that this can get a little bit more complex in making that decision. The other part about all this is that generally speaking I don’t see the price really that aggressive on these refurbished units.

If I am going to even consider refurbished units it’s got to be half of the price.

A $500 unit I want it for $250 to even take a look further as far as all the other things that I am mentioning so definitely stay away from it. The better thing to do is to shop right for your unit, do some smart shopping once you have decided what processor size etc are the specs that you are looking for shopping around. What you will find is that frankly Best Buy has the best deal when 9/10 computers when I shop there. I find that Best Buy got the best deals in town and I’m pushing them for a particular reason why other than just give me your recommendation but easy to shop. Go to Amazon, go to manufacturers, one thing to be cautious of is the big box storage facility like a Costco or the Sam’s Club things like that.

When you are comparing make sure you are comparing Apples to Apples and the same model and then again you want to look for the processor as well. The hard drive it really doesn’t matter if it’s a year older or a year newer as technology’s price is not going to be a big deal there but in the processor it will be.

Typically, the processors that are in those stores had a little bit of a discount is going to be the last generation processor.

If you are at Best Buy you are probably going to see a generation 5 and when you go to Costco you might see a very similar machine but a 4thgeneration. Not huge but again you want to take a look at the price difference, if you say $50 I probably just go with the latest, with the latest technology. So, that’s my wrap up on buying refurbished general speaking I would probably stay away from them and just shop your computers right and save money by just getting the best deal in town.

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