Trying to keep up with the latest in technology can do a lot of harm on your pocketbook, so sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices so that you can still pay the bills, put food on the table, and toss a roof over your head. Afterall, not everyone is a Campus Baller. Shopping for deals online is one way to save money, but there is another strategy that can save you a heck of a lot of money. How about looking into refurbished products?
Naturally, when you start looking at refurbished products in the marketplace, you automatically eschew the absolute newest stuff. For example, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll be able to find a refurbished fourth-generation iPod nano, considering that Apple just announced the new music player a very short while ago. That said, it’s not hard to score a wicked deal on a third-gen nano. It’s not that old and it provides much of the same functionality. Not to mention, there are tons of accessories for it.
That said, are there other sacrifices to be made when you take the refurbished route? We here at Futurelooks decided to bite the bullet and give you a real life example of buying refurbished, offering both the pros and the cons of doing so. Read on to find out if going for refurbished stuff is the right choice for you.
Is Refurbished the Same as Used?
Some folks are a little confused as to what “refurbished” really means. How is that retailers and manufacturers are able to sell you these seemingly new products for a reduced price? Do they smell bad? Are they scratched to hell? Just what does one get when they go for that “refurb” deal?
Well, while there are certainly some exceptions, the typical tale of a refurbished product goes as thus:
- Purchased new from any number of retailers
- Experiences a warranty issue of some kind
- Gets repaired by a certified technician
- Brought back to near-new condition
- Inspected and certified as being close to factory fresh
- Repackaged and sold as factory refurbished
For a lot of companies, when a customer sends in something for a warranty repair, he or she does not receive the original item back. Instead, a suitable replacement (refurbished) is sent to the customer so that he or she can have as little time away from the product as possible. There may also be some defective units sent back from a retail outlet, for instance.
In this way, refurbished products — like the Apple iPods shown above — are technically used, but they have been properly repaired and the original manufacturer (or a suitable representative) has inspected the product to ensure that it is in proper working condition. Items sold as refurbished typically do not have much in terms of cosmetic blemishes or other damage. In the case of Apple, many users have reported that the products are nearly indistinguishable from new, except for the downgraded brown box packaging.
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What to Expect with Refurbished Products
Your experience will vary somewhat from manufacturer to manufacturer when it comes to buying refurbished products. Sometimes, you can hardly tell the difference between a refurbished product and a brand new one. Other times, the original packaging may be missing, replaced by a generic-looking box instead.
One brick and mortar retail outlet that specializes in refurbished products and overstocks of all genres is XS Cargo. Many of the electronics sold through this store are factory refurbished, giving you an opportunity to pick up things like DVD players and Bluetooth headsets on the cheap. Don’t expect the most powerful units on the market, but you can expect adequate functionality and a reasonably reliable product.
By and large, the products sold at XS Cargo retain some form of official packaging, though I did buy a Motorola Bluetooth headset there once that was just in a small ziploc bag. It still worked and I got it for about $10, a far cry from full retail. It’s also far greener than wrapping a product with layers of plastic so there’s a eco-friendly aspect to buying refurbished.
Encountering Geeks.com
What if your interests lie beyond simple trinkets offered at places like XS Cargo? What if you want to save some real money on something far more substantial like a laptop computer, a motherboard, or a printer? Well, there happens to be a pretty cool online store called Geeks.com that handles all that kind of stuff and they’ve got quite the impressive inventory.
Based out of California, Geeks.com specializes in “computer-related excess inventory, manufacturer closeouts, high-demand and unusual components, and peripherals at highly-discounted prices.” Among those heavily discount products are a number of factory refurbished items and these are all clearly marked as such on their respective product pages.
For the purposes of our look into refurbs, Geeks.com voluntarily supplied us with two of their most popular cheap digital cameras to sample. These cameras were not pre-inspected, nor were they cherry picked so the experience we get should be similar to what you’ll get if you shop their vast inventory and pick out something for yourself. The cheapness does not refer to the quality of the cameras; instead, it refers to the fact that both the Samsung S850 and the Kodak Z885 can be had for under $100.
Samsung S850 and Kodak Z885 Digital Cameras
The Samsung S850 and the Kodak Z885 have rather similar features and give us a good idea of how things look on the refurbished end of the stick from two large digital camera manufactureres.
Both digital cameras offer an impressive 8.1 megapixel resolution and a powerful 5x optical zoom lens. Keeping in mind that most consumer cameras only pull off 3x optical these days, that extra zoom can be a major plus. They both take on regular SD and SDHC memory and come powered by a couple of AA batteries. The Samsung S850 shows off a good-sized 2.5-inch color LCD, as does the Kodak Z885.
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What’s In The Box?
The packaging and contents were quite different between the two cameras, however. With the Samsung S850, I was given a generic white box that just said “Samsung refurbished camera” on it. This didn’t offer the best of presentation, but we’re going for value here. Inside the box was the camera itself, a lanyard, USB cable, and AV cable, as well as the instruction manual. You’ll need to provide your own memory card, but that’s the case with nearly all cameras these days. I can easily do without packing in a measly 16MB card.
The Kodak Z885 came with slightly better packaging, wrapping a generic brown box with a glossy white sleeve. The sleeve only had a sticker telling me the model number of the camera, but the Kodak EasyShare sleeve — which notes that the camera is factory reconditioned — did look more like “real” packaging. Inside, you’ll find the camera, a lanyard, USB cable, instruction manual, dock adapter, and a couple of AA batteries.
Refurbished Digital Cameras In The Field…
I’m more of a Canon guy myself, so it took a little while to get used to the user interface on these two cameras. Having done so, however, I can say with confidence that I am pleased with the build quality and feature set on both cameras. Giving the context of a consumer-minded point-and-shoot, the picture quality is also quite good. The pictures above of the XS Cargo store were shot using the Samsung S850, as are a few pictures from my Flickr photostream.
If it wasn’t for the packaging, I would really have no way of knowing that both the Samsung S850 and the Kodak Z885 were factory refurbished. They really looked as if they were brand new. Having said that, there are unscrupulous retailers online that will take advantage of this observation and sell as new. Geeks on the other hand is proud that they are offer these types of products and all refurbished products are clearly labelled. Even though the retail price on the Samsung S850 is still in the $300 range, Geeks.com is selling the refurbished camera for $79.99. The same can be said about the Kodak Z885. It retails for about $300 as well, but Geeks.com has it for $94.95. That represents a savings of over 68%!
Saving a Bundle in a Refurb Paradise
Unless you are absolutely bent on getting the absolutely newest product on the market, you can save yourself boatloads of money by buying a refurbished product instead. While they retail for about $300 new, the two refurbished cameras in this review can be purchased from Geeks.com for under $100. Try finding a new camera for under $100 that offers the same features, build quality, and reliability as these two. The Kodak, in particular, is noted as being one of Geek.com’s best sellers. It also receives among the least number of customer complaints and returns.
Go ahead and let your buddy blow $300 on a new camera. You can get something just as good for 1/3 of the price, spending the extra $200 on whatever else you’d like. Yes, sub-$100 refurbished cameras from Geeks.com are the real deal.
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