Do you think is there a big difference between a brand new laptop & a refurbish one?

Question

Or is just a matter that once you open a brand new item it looses it value.
Would you explain the pros And cons

Answer 1

There are several factors you might want to consider:
1) Call it the "Quality of Refurbishment". Who did the work? How much work did they actually do on the machine? Do they offer a warranty? If they reformatted the disk, reninstalled the OS, ran some diagnostics, and cleaned up the case a bit, then they're not doing much that you couldn't do yourself. If they upgraded to a newer, bigger, faster disk, added memory, thoroughly checked things out and fixed any problems, then you end up with an improved machine.

2) What is the price differential between a new machine that will do what you need and the refurbished machine that you're considering? If the "Quality of Refurbishment" is high, then you need to make sure that the refurbished machine is still priced well. If the "Quality of Refurbishment" is low, then it may not be much of a bargain.

3) What is the best performance you can expect? Asked another way: what were the orginal bus & processor speeds of the used computer? Asked yet another way, how old is it? If the computer is more than a year or two old, the clock speeds will be much slower than on a new machine and refurbishing it will probably not make it go much faster. Maybe that's okay. It depends on what you intend to do with your refurbished computer, but you ought at least to be aware of it. It is possible that the refurbish could include a new processor, but that would cost more and still cannot run any faster than the bus speed of the machine (to visualize: imagine a fast processor waiting for slow memory or a slow disk).

4) What is the price of a "nearly new" computer? Can you get something that's only a few months old? Can you get something that's still under warranty or can you extend the warranty of the machine?

5) What restrictions will the age of the machine impose? I recently upgraded a machine. My previous machine was several years old, but it still ran beautifully and was plenty fast enough for me. Unfortunately, some software that I really wanted to run wouldn't run on an old version of the Operating System and the machine was too old to upgrade the OS. (Now my wife uses that old machine, so it wasn't a waste, by the way.)

I hope I haven't discouraged you. A lot depends on your needs. If you want a machine to do email and some web browsing, your performance needs may not be that great. If you are thinking of some compute-intensive work (say digital audio recording or video production tasks), you'll really be happier with the most powerful machine you an afford.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Hi Yani, Originally, a Netbook was called such because it was just good enough to be used for the Net. You could do e-mail, web-browsing, messenger and stuff like that. Using the atom or similar low powered processors it does not have the power for large applications like a typical laptop would. (or notebook). Notebook and Laptop are considered the same. If you wanted to develop software or run 3D modeling software or gaming or multimedia... you would most likely want a real laptop... a netbook will not handle some things very well. A laptop or notebook is basically a portable desktop. A netbook is a low powered, slow, and usually small notebook. A refurbished laptop you are taking your chances. I would check to see what sort of warranty is on it first. It might be something that was opened and returned without damage... or it may be a lemon. If the warranty period is good perhaps you can get it all repaired for free if there are issues. A netbook I assume would be good enough for school... altho somewhat choppy sometimes for video playback. Hope this helps Jeff

Answer 3

Yes and no. A Brand new laptop is unused, and usually trouble/error free. A Refurbished is a laptop that's been returned or repaired and cosmetically and internally repaired...sometimes they work as brand new and sometimes they may still have little nicks that haven't been fixed.

If you do decide to purchase a refurbished item make sure they come with some form of warranty and check out the companys reputation. I can safely say that I own brand new and refurbished items from sony and they're refurbished items works just as good as brand new.

Answer 4

There is because refurbished laptops generally have an older operating system (windows 98, 2000, etc). Also, refurbished laptops work fine but minor things like the appearence on the laptop may not be the greatest.

Answer 5

refurbished means brought back to factory specs.

A laptop could have been bought (lets say for a college student) but then they found out the university supplies one to every new student.
What would you do? Return it, Right? Whatever the situation is the laptop was returned to the manufacturer and they brought it back to For sale quality I bought a refurb. PC Oct '05 80GB hd 256MB RAM DVD/CD-RW extra bay for hd and DVD drive front side audio ports, usb firewire, and (5)media card inputs, keyboard and mouse $350 out the door

Now a Days w/ Vista coming out soon You should be able to find a good laptop (not Vista ready) for a good price but I don't find anything wrong with refurbished either
Compare price+specs before making a final decision

Answer 6

It all depends on the situation.......was the refurbished one taken good care of? Is it user easy? You might want to tinker or play with the refurbished one to check for reliability. The new will cost more but you want to get one that will last long so you don't get a good deal on the refurbished and then pay as much for repairs on the refurbished as mush as the nice new one cost.

Answer 7

i think it would be considered the same