Does anyone have any experience with this? It would save me a lot of money but I also don’t want to flush it down the toilet.
I prefer buying refurb laptops on eBay personally. eBay’s buyer protections are top tier, you can return the machine easily if it’s not exactly what was represented in the listing or if there’s any undisclosed damage or loss of function. Essentially you’re getting what the listing showed you or it’s like 5 clicks for a seller paid return label to send it back for a full refund (including shipping costs both ways.)
Amazon is hit and miss in my experience, they care about their cut of that particular transaction and not as much about whether you’re coming back to make more transactions in the future, and their customer service is atrocious.
Edit: prices tend to be lower on fleaBay too, and you can offer a lower price on many listings for a deeper discount.
It’s really hard to say because there are so many different listings for laptops. Try calculating a spec to price ratio to determine if it’s a good value or not.
Amazon is a marketplace.
If you go to the flea market and buy a laptop that is bad, does that mean everybody selling laptops at the flea market is selling a bad product?
There are solid sellers on Amazon and there are shady scam sellers on Amazon.
My advice for your best chances of buying what you are expecting to buy is to go through an authorized reseller of the laptop you are looking for. I bought my last laptop from Newegg and got what I paid for.
Very good point and thank you. I’ve simply not bought a computer in a long time so it’s not clear where I begin.
Go to Newegg, look for ones sold by Newegg. They also have a marketplace model, so picking a laptop from them can make a difference should you have the unlikely outcome of an issue. Newegg is pretty solid with customer service.
We have a traditional store reselling refurbished laptops in my city. They’re pretty awesome and I got a nice Dell laptop from them. 100% recommend. But I don’t know what Amazon does.
With my laptop, the battery is old. It has like 40% of capacity left and turns off after 2h. But it’s plenty fast and was cheap. And I got to look at the details before buying.
We do have a very good store as well. I should also look there. My tower seems ok but is 12 years old so I’m mulling it over. I simply need it for work.
Your mileage may vary, but I’ve had a ton of success with back market.com
I tend not to buy electronics from Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon. I’ve had more scam swapperoos and straight up DOA than I can count. They package a CPU exactly how they package an action figure, they drop it into a huge box with 2 little air pillows and yeet it in the back of a truck.
If it’s a third party seller not shipped by Amazon it’ll be as good as any other retailer, I mean, they’ll most likely confirm that they’re sending you the actual thing and they’ll use plenty of packing peanuts
Another thing I’ve noticed on Amazon is oftentimes you’ll get the first generation of a product. I bought a smart space heater from there quite some time ago and by the time I’d owned it for a few months it was already unsupported, then six months after that it was impossible to connect to (it lost WiFi and I had no means to reconfigure it).
Had I purchased elsewhere I probably would’ve received the fifth or sixth generation. If I do buy from Amazon now I’m always super picky about details.
Thank you. That’s a good point.
I had good luck with https://www.wisetekmarket.com
Of course any used laptop will be a toss up. I had good luck, I know others have, but it does come with a little bit of risk.
Check open box prices on ebay. Open box means the product was opened or used for a trivial amount of time, so practically new. Bought a $3000 surface laptop studio for $1200
Probably okay. But if I wanted to hack people, I would sell cheap laptops eBay with bios rootkits.
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I just have gift cards to use so it wouldn’t cost me anything for an inexpensive one really to buy there is why I’m looking. I will also look at my community store.
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I bought a refurbished laptop on Amazon 3 years ago. I still use it every day no problems.
Can’t speak to all of them - I imagine they’re all in varying conditions. However Amazon has a very generous returns policy (at least here in the UK).
I would say go for it.
Thank you. Opinions online seem to vary.
My pleasure. Remember: dissatisfied customers are far more likely to write a review than satisfied customers.
You need to approach with understanding that it could be a total loss. This is very unlikely but that’s just how second hand market works.
After first few transactions, you will see why many people are switching to this approach. Statistically at some point something will go wrong but all of that sweet chaddar saved will cover it.
If you have zero room for loss, then you are best paying premium for new.
FAFO
Makes sense, thanks. They’re just so damn expensive new.
I would not buy anything electronic from Amazon used or new. You never know what you are getting (Real thing? Counterfeit? Working? Quality repair parts? Undisclosed customer return? Sold by Amazon or third party? Who knows — they mix stock at the warehouse).
Most manufacturers sell their own refurbs on their own website and they come with a warranty.
I bought all my devices refurbished from ebay.
on my xps 15 I saved $1500 alone. still runs fine almost 10 years later.
Ok great thank you.
I wouldn’t trust anything like that from amazon. I got a refurb kindle once and it still had food in the charging port.
I’ve had better luck with ebay, but I’ve been seeing a lot of shit drop shipped from places like Amazon lately. So check the reviews and pick a seller with a lot of reviews.
New egg is probably your best bet. They have lots of refurbs.
